Suspected pirates on Friday, stormed an oil tanker, MT Vemahope at 116 nautical miles of West Agbami terminal, taking away 10 crew members in another kidnap for ransom incident.
According to Dryad Global, “the incident occurred at 178 nautical miles of Lagos, where the vessel was attacked by a single speedboat with an unknown number of armed individuals on board.
“The vessel is understood to have been boarded resulting in the kidnap of 10 crew members with four crew remaining onboard. With the kidnap of 10 crew from the Vemahope, the total number of crew kidnapped from vessels operating in West Africa within 2020 has increased to 42 personnel.
“The incident occurred 39 nautical miles of an incident involving a vessel being fired upon on February 20 and 101 nautical miles of what appeared to be a focus of incident reporting within 2019.
“Historically incident reporting within this area is significantly less than that of the wider Delta area, principally as a result of less traffic density. However, across 2019 and 2020, there has been a gradual increase in incidents occurring beyond traditional maritime crime heartlands.
“This incident would be the seventh deep offshore incident within the Nigerian Exclusive Economic Zone within 2020. Total incidents in West Africa have thus far tracked 2019 trends almost exactly with a partial fall of only one incident seen in 2020 compared incidents over the same time frame in 2019.”
