Armed men suspected to be sea pirates struck within the coastal waters of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, and captured the captain and Chief Engineer of a Dutch Cargo ship.<\/p>\n
The victims whose names were simply given as Mr. Pikus and mr. Melnikov from Russia were captured by an eight member gang of armed men recently.<\/p>\n
The Tide gathered that the Chief Cook of the ill-fated cargo ship, a Filipino was fatally wounded by the pirates during the operation before they were abducted.<\/p>\n
According to source, the armed men on approaching the ship, opened fire sporadically, boarded the ship and also robbed the 14-member crew of their money and belongings.<\/p>\n
Although, report has it that no contact had been established with the pirates or the victims, but efforts were being intensified for their release.<\/p>\n
Attempt by The Tide correspondent to get reaction from the co-ordinator of Nigerian Maritime Administration and safety Agency (NIMASA), Eastern Zone, Mr. Olayemi Abass proved abortive as he was said to be out of the state for an official engagement.<\/p>\n
It will be recalled that pirates also recently attacked a cargo ship, MV Four Seas SW, off Lagos Coast and killed the captain of the ship, a Sri Lankan and the Chief Engineer, an Indian national.<\/p>\n
The series of attacks on laden ships have placed Nigeria on Maritime security Alert, and rated second to Somalia in the world in terms of piracy.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, it was gathered that from January 2012 till date, about eight piracy attacks have been recorded in the country\u2019s coastal waters.<\/p>\n
When also contacted on telephone, the Police Public Relation Officer (PPRO) of the Rivers State Command, Mr. Ben Ogwuegbulam said he is not aware of such incident.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Collins Barasimeye<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Armed men suspected to be sea pirates struck within the coastal waters of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, and captured the captain and Chief Engineer of a Dutch Cargo ship. The victims whose names were simply given as Mr. Pikus and mr. Melnikov from Russia were captured by an eight member gang of armed men recently. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maritime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}