Pirates Abduct Six Turkish Crew off Nigeria

Pirates off the coast of Nigeria have attacked a Turkish cargo ship, kidnapping six crew members in a region which has seen increasing piracy in recent years, a Turkish maritime news agency reported monday.

The Deniz News Agency said pirates abducted the ship’s mechanical engineer, electrician, navigator and three captains. The ship is owned by Kaptanogul Shipping, which told the news agency that both the kidnapped crew and those who remained on the ship, were “in good health”.

It was unclear how many crew members were aboard the M/T Puli, which was carrying chemicals, when it was attacked. Company officials said the pirates have not contacted them.

At the end of 2015 pirates kidnapped crew members from Lithuania, Ukraine and Poland in the area which is increasingly a piracy hotspot.

Meanwhile incidents of piracy off the coast of Somalia in eastern Africa — once a global hub for pirates — have significantly fallen in the past three years due in large part to patrols by international warships and armed guards aboard commercial vessels.