Pirates kidnap five Indians off coast of Niger Delta

Gunmen stormed a tanker ship off the coast of Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta, ransacking the vessel and kidnapping five Indian sailors. This came as the Joint Task Force in the Niger Delta, codenamed Operation Pulo Shield raised the alarm over increasing involvement of foreigners in oil theft in the country.

The attack targeted the SP Brussels tanker as it sat about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the coast of Niger Delta, Medallion Marine said in a statement. The gunmen, the statement said, stole personal belongings on board the ship in the attack and kidnapped the sailors. It said those remaining on board later sailed the vessel safely to a port in Lagos.

The attack on the tanker came the same day gunmen abducted four South Koreans and a Nigerian working for Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. in Bayelsa State.

Meanwhile, the JTF Commander, Maj.-Gen. Johnson Ochoga, who spoke in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, also called on the Nigerian Immigration Service to always monitor the activities of foreigners in the region. Operatives of the JTF, he said, had arrested 10 Indians and four Nigerians on board an oil vessel, MT ASHKAY, within Nigerian territorial waters.

Two naval guards killed, four foreigners kidnapped by pirates off Nigeria waters

Two Nigerian naval guards were killed while four foreigners were kidnapped by pirates when they attacked a ship being used by an oil servicing company in the waters off Niger delta, Nigeria. According to the Navy spokesman Commodore Kabir Aliyu, the foreigners are one Malaysian, one Iranian, a Thai and an Indonesian.

The attack took place around 33 nautical miles off the coast of Bonny, Nigeria's main oil export terminal. Netherlands-based Sea Trucks Group, whose boat Jascon was attacked, confirmed that four of its staff had been seized and that two other security guards were also wounded in the attack. The two remaining injured security personnel are now in Port Harcourt hospital for treatment. Sea Trucks Group is making every effort to find out where the kidnappers.