FILE PICTURE: The issue of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea was raised by several speakers during the Security Council's debate on transnational maritime crime. Picture: United Nations.
The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) has confirmed an incident in which a South African sailor may have been kidnapped off the coast of Equatorial Guinea.
According to AFP, a South African was on board a ship that was attacked by “pirates” while en route to Equatorial Guinea.
Seven crew members aboard a supply ship for the oil industry in Equatorial Guinea were kidnapped when their vessel was attacked, according to a statement by the country’s oil and gas ministry on Friday. The US oil giant Exxonmobil reported that the supply ship Warden, which it was chartering from the oil services firm Swire, was attacked on Wednesday in the country’s territorial waters.
The vessel’s 15-member crew comprised nationals from South Africa, the Philippines, Serbia and Cameroon. Eight colleagues hid, while the other seven were kidnapped.
Dirco spokesperson Lunga Ngqengelele says that little information was available at present, and that the department was “in talks” with representatives of the Central African country to establish if the South African crewman was one of those kidnapped.
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