Hijacked tanker released another taken

 

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The hijacked 2009-built, 12,807 dwt products tanker ‘Fair Artemis’ has been released.

The Fairdeal-managed vessel was reported hijacked last week in the Gulf of Guinea.

Fairdeal reported losing contact with the Liberia-flagged ‘Fair Artemis’ on 7^th June, when it was sailing off the coast of Ghana.

 

A Ghanaian military spokesman told Reuters earlier in this week that it had likely moved from Ghanaian to Togolese waters.

 

The ship had 24 crew members on board and had a cargo of fuel oil at the time of the incident, according to a statement from Fairdeal.

 

Meanwhile the Malaysian authorities are looking for a group of alleged pirates who hijacked a small tanker off the east coast of the country, stealing its cargo.

 

Pirates reportedly hijacked the 2009-built, 6,905 dwt, Malaysia-registered products tanker ‘Budi Mesra Dua’ last Saturday off Bintulu in Sarawak state, as the ship sailed from neighbouring Singapore.

 

“Ten machete-wielding pirates boarded the ship, which was carrying about a million litres of diesel. They took control of the tanker for about 10 hours,” Mohamad Sufi Mohamad Ramli, a local commander with the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency told Reuters.

 

The armed pirates siphoned off the diesel fuel to another ship, robbed the crew of their valuables and destroyed communication equipment before escaping, he reportedly said.

 

Pirates have attacked a number of vessels in waters off Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia recently.

 

In April, pirates injured the captain and stole diesel fuel from a Thailand-owned tanker off the eastern coast of Malaysia.

 

In the same month, three Indonesian crew were kidnapped and diesel fuel stolen from a Singapore-managed tanker in the Strait of Malacca.

 

The International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB) Kuala Lumpur-based Piracy Reporting Centre urged maritime agencies in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia to bolster security measures to stop the piracy menace.

 

“In recent weeks, we have recorded five hijackings (including this latest incident), in the South China Sea area and in the Malacca Strait,” the centre’s head Noel Choong told Reuters.“In four of the cases, pirates stole the diesel and gas oil cargo.”