Maritime security consultants are downplaying the threat to seafarers who take refuge in ship citadels, following a fatal pirate attack on a Borealis Maritime containership.

One seafarer was killed and 15 more kidnapped from the 2,824-teu Mozart (built 2007) on the morning of 24 January 2021, around 98 nautical miles (185 km) off Sao Tome and Principe in the Gulf of Guinea.

Reports said the four gunmen somehow breached the citadel and, during the struggle, second mechanic Farman Ismayilov of Azerbaijan — the only non-Turkish crew member — was shot dead.

The gunmen left three seafarers on board, two of whom were injured.

Consultancy Ambrey said the pirates gained access to the safe room via a hatch on the poop deck.

Dryad Global founding partner Munro Anderson told TradeWinds that the incident was "tragic and troubling".

Furthest successful attack offshore

"The attack itself sets a new record as the furthest offshore incident recorded to date," he said.

"Indeed the ability to target vessels and kidnap large numbers of crew this far offshore is almost certainly a worrying development."

He added that the answer to how the citadel was accessed is likely to be closely held information by the parties involved.

There are three possibilities: the citadel was not properly secured; it was breached, which is considered the least likely; or it was opened voluntarily when seafarers not already inside were threatened.

Consultancy Ambrey said all crew had mustered in the citadel on the Mozart.

"Citadels by design remain secure," Anderson said.

Premature speculation

Dirk Siebels, senior advisor at Risk Intelligence, told TradeWinds that without an investigation report, it is too early too speculate on a breach of the citadel or use of explosives on the ship.

"Similar rumours have been mentioned in other cases, notably during an attack against an FPSO off Nigeria in 2020, but were later confirmed as false information," he said.

Another industry source said the incident was not the start of a trend and added it was questionable whether the citadel could have been breached in such a relatively short time.

The source added that it was easy to predict where and when the vessel would be.

Nigerian Navy Special Forces carry out an anti-piracy exercise on a French warship in a stage-managed operation in 2019. The Gulf of Guinea has been a hotbed of piracy incidents. Photo: Scanpix

"So it is interesting that it was targeted just inside Sao Tome's EEZ [Exclusive Economic Zone], where intervention by naval forces from Nigeria would likely take at least a bit longer because it is easy to predict that they would wait for diplomatic clearance," he said.

Deliberate target?

"It's also an area without much other maritime traffic so it may have been a deliberate targeting."

Consultancy Ambrey told TradeWinds that it did not consider the attack exceptional.

Criminals have previously made holes in citadels using ship's equipment and fired shots into the citadel, the company said.

A citadel should be a hardened room that prevents penetration by small firearms and forceful entry.

Ambrey advises that the time that the room can resist ballistic penetration should match or exceed the known threat.

"Other measures can help too, for example planning a route to pass nearby secured offshore terminals could reduce the response time," the company said.