Pirates kidnap crew of Turkish cargo ship

ARMED pirates attacked a Turkish cargo ship off the West African coast, kidnapping 15 sailors and killing one of them, officials said yesterday as Turkey sought to recover the captured crew.

The Liberian-flagged M/V Mozart was sailing from Lagos, Nigeria, to Cape Town when it was attacked on Saturday morning 100 nautical miles (185km) northwest of the island nation of Sao Tome and Principe.

Turkey’s Maritime Directorate said the crew locked themselves in a safe area but the pirates forced entry after six hours. During the struggle, one crew member died. It identified the victim as engineer Farman Ismayilov of Azerbaijan, the only nonturkish crew member.

After kidnapping most of the crew, the pirates left the ship in the Gulf of Guinea with three sailors aboard, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

According to reports, the pirates disabled most of the ship’s systems, leaving only the navigation system for the remaining crew to find their way to Gabon’s Port-gentil.

The Gulf of Guinea, off the coasts of Nigeria, Guinea, Togo, Benin and Cameroon, is the most dangerous sea in the world for piracy, according to the International Maritime Bureau. Boardings in the waters off West Africa rose to 18 from 13 in 2019, the London-based firm added.

Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, said he had spoken to the senior officer on the Mozart, and that the morale of the sailors aboard was good. “We are continuing coordinated negotiations for the release” of the abducted sailors, he said. “The pirates have yet to make any response.”