At approximately 1753 hours, preliminary reports indicated that seven armed individuals boarded the ship and fired warning shots, prompting several crew members to seek cover in a safe area.
The pirates stayed on board for about three hours after assembling everyone on deck and confiscating their mobile phones.
Following their departure, the crew came out of hiding to find the Captain, Chief Mate, and Chief Engineer, all Chinese nationals, missing, who are suspected of being kidnapped by the attackers.
The crew had to sail closer to land before reporting the event because there was no mobile network coverage at sea.
The rest of the crew is safe, and the ship has now safely docked at Tema Fishing Harbour. The Marine Police and the Eastern Naval Command’s Naval Intelligence personnel have conducted initial interrogations, confirming the incident and the suspected abduction.
A statement signed by Brigadier General, E AGGREY-QUASHIE, Director General, Public Relations of the Ghana Armed Forces said the neigbbouring countries have been alerted about the incident.
“Information of the incident has been shared with neighbouring countries through the ECOWAS Multinational Maritime Coordination Centre (MMCC) Zone F in Accra, under the Yaounde Architecture for maritime security. This was to alert our neighbours to also look out for the kidnappers.
Meanwhile, all efforts are being made by intelligence agencies to locate and free the crew of the ship.”
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
