Under the circumstances, things are going well with the fifteen crew members of a Dutch ship that earlier this month were kidnapped off the coast of Benin in West Africa.
“Contact has been made with the crew of the tanker Davide B. All fifteen crew members are together and are doing well under difficult circumstances”, says De Poli Tankers from Barendrecht. in a statement. The news has also been conveyed to the relatives of the crew.
The crew members are from the Philippines, Russia and two Baltic states. The company says it will “do everything possible to release the crew,” without providing further information so as not to endanger the safety of the crew.
Six crew members were left on the ship. The ship is now under escort on its way to a safe harbor.
Supposedly demanded ransom
The oil tanker sailed under the flag of Malta, but is managed by the company De Poli Tankers from Barendrecht. The ship was en route from the Latvian capital of Riga to Lagos in Nigeria. The raid was nearly 340 kilometers off the coast of Benin. The kidnappers supposedly took the crew members to one of the nearby countries to demand a ransom.
To be found in the Gulf of Guinea increasingly robberies or hijackings take place. Last September pirates attacked another Groningen ship and kidnapped two crew members. In January, a person was killed in an attack on a container ship, the other crew members were kidnapped and released after a few weeks.
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