Six Chinese, three Indonesians, one Gabonese, and four Nigerians, crew members of a fishing vessel captured in early February by pirates off the coast of Gabon, were released on Saturday by the Nigerian army, she said. announced to the press.
Read also: Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea: "Faced with this insecurity, we need an international military presence"
“
The ten men were kidnapped off Gabon on February 7 and brought back to the Nigerian coast.
A ransom of $ 300,000 had been paid before we arrived to rescue them,
”army lieutenant-colonel Mohammed Yahaya told AFP on Saturday evening.
After the payment of this ransom, and while the hostages were leaving the bush where they were being held in south-eastern Nigeria, "
information concerning a probable new kidnapping reached us
" deciding "
the army and pro-government militias to intervene to rescue them,
”he added.
Attacks on ships to kidnap their crews and exchange them for ransoms have become very frequent in recent years in this gulf that stretches from Senegal to Angola, perpetrated mainly by Nigerian pirates.
The Chinese fishing vessel, the Lianpengyu 809, which flies the Gabonese flag, had been boarded by pirates aboard speedboats off Port-Gentil, a Gabonese port.
The pirates aboard this boat, and its 14 crew members, still on board, were spotted some 110 km from the Nigerian island of Bonny a few days after the attack.
According to maritime security consultant Dryad Global, this ship was then used by pirates as a "
mother ship
" to attack tankers in the area.
In 2020, the Gulf of Guinea, which stretches over 5,700 km, concentrated 130 of the 135 kidnappings of sailors recorded in the world, according to a recent report by the International Maritime Bureau.
A mode of action that has become more lucrative than the attacks on oil tankers.
The sea route is traveled every day by more than 1,500 boats.