(Eagle News) — Twelve crew members of a Swiss cargo vessel, including seven Filipino members, were kidnapped by pirates off the coast of Nigeria on Saturday.
The incident happened 45 nautical miles from Bonny Island in Niger Delta which was confirmed by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA).
Aside from the seven Filipinos, the five others who were kidnapped were from Slovenia, Ukraine, Romania, Croatia and Bosnia.
Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said that the Philippne government is doing “all efforts” to ascertain the condition of the Filipino hostages, and could not release more information as of the moment.
Cayetano said they are all checking the identities of the kidnappers, and ascertaining their demands.
The Philippine embassy in Libya has already given report on this, but he has to relay this through a memo to President Rodrigo Duterte before announcing details to the public.
“The pirate gang boarded the Glarus by means of long ladders and cut the razor wire on deck to gain access to the vessel and eventually the bridge,” Massoel Shipping, the company which owned the MV Glarus said in a statement.
“Having destroyed much of the vessel’s communications equipment the criminal gang departed taking 12 of the 19 crew complement as hostage,” it added.
The spokesman of the Massoel Shipping said families of the crew members have been informed of the situation.
Massoel spokesman Patrick Adamson told AFP it was the second largest number of people taken from a ship in the oil delta southeast of Nigeria this year.
“Pirates usually dont make contacts in the first 48 hours, so we don’t have any news on that,” he added.
For safety reasons, neither the identities nor nationalities of the hostages would be released, he said.
More than 60 crew were reported kidnapped last year in waters off Nigeria, Africa’s leading crude producer, although many attacks are not reported.
The Geneva-based shipping company said “all the appropriate authorities have been notified” and specialists have been called in to “secure the speedy and safe release of those being held.”
“Families are being kept closely informed of the situation.”
Switzerland’s foreign ministry said it “has been informed of the attack on Glarus, a vessel sailing under a Swiss flag along the Nigerian coast.”
The Swiss Maritime Navigation Office was in contact with the vessel’s operator, it added.
(with a report from Agence France-Presse)