Piracy: six sailors including a Pole kidnapped in the Gulf of Guinea

Several crew members, including a Pole, were kidnapped in the attack on a container ship in the Gulf of Guinea, the Polish Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday (December 15th).

The Danish navy said this week that pirates had kidnapped a total of six people aboard the Greek ship Tonsberg, in international waters off the island of Bioko (Equatorial Guinea).

Read also Gulf of Guinea: the fight against piracy begins to bear fruit

The Polish ministry said it had "

".

He also said in a statement to be in contact with diplomats from "

" as well as with the owner of the ship to coordinate efforts to find them.

Almost the only piracy zone in the world

According to the Danish Navy, one of its frigates, the Esbern Snare, which has been patrolling the area since November, chased the pirates who left the Tonsberg on a small boat with the hostages on board. A helicopter from the frigate followed them from a distance so as not to endanger the hostages, but had to stop when the pirates reached Nigerian waters, with the Danes' mission forbidding them to enter their territorial waters. In addition to the six hostages, an injured person was rescued aboard the Danish frigate for treatment and 14 other crew members were unharmed and still aboard the Tonsberg, Danish news agency Ritzau told a navy spokesperson. According to Marine Traffic, the Tonsberg is currently off the coast of Benin.

Perpetrated primarily by Nigerian pirates, attacks on ships to kidnap their crews and exchange them for ransoms have become very common in recent years in the Gulf of Guinea, which stretches along 5,700 km of coastline in Africa. Where is.

The waters of this gulf, bordered by some twenty countries and which stretches from Senegal to Angola, are rich in hydrocarbons and fishery resources.

This area has become the global epicenter of criminal maritime activity, concentrating some 99% of pirate kidnappings of sailors in 2020, according to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the United Nations. Stable Seas research institute released Tuesday.