Pirates attacked yet another vessel in the Gulf of Guinea, Greek coastguards said on Tuesday.
Their latest victim is the 51,400-dwt Happy Lady (built 2013), a ship managed by Thanassis Martinos-led company Eastern Mediterranean Maritime (Eastmed).
The vessel was anchored two miles off Limboh, a port in Cameroon, when armed pirates raided it in the early morning hours, a coastguard statement said.
Eight of the ship’s 28 crew were kidnapped – five Greeks, including the vessel’s 45-year-old master, two Philippinos and one Ukrainian. Another Greek crew member was injured in the raid and is currently treated in hospital, according to the statement.
Managers at Eastmed were not immediately available to comment. Coastguards said that Greece’s ministries for shipping and foreign affairs were closely monitoring the matter in cooperation with the vessel’s management company.
This is just the latest in a string of recent piracy incidents in the Gulf of Guinea, where attackers’ focus has shifted from cargo theft to holding crews for ransom.
The region accounted for about eight in ten crew kidnappings, according to a report issued in October by the International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB) piracy reporting centre.
The situation has only got worse since, with several other vessels being the victims of attacks involving crew kidnappings.
Those included ships by companies such as Vinalines, JJ Ugland, European Navigation, Navios Maritime Acquisition, Union Maritime, Kadioglu Maritime, Swire Pacific Offshore and MC-Schiffahrt.
In almost all cases, pirates released the crew members after receiving ransoms.
