On October 28, the Swiss judicial officials have released the twelve crew members of a Swiss ship reportedly seized off Nigeria coast.
What happened?
On September 22, the cargo vessel ‘MV Glarus’ loaded with wheat was captured by the Nigerian pirates along with the crew members. The ship had been transporting wheat from Lagos to Port Harcourt, in Southern Nigeria, when it was hijacked in the Gulf of Guinea off Nigeria’s Bonny Island. The pirates destroyed the communication equipment onboard the vessel to ensure that they are not being tracked.
Intense negotiations
Following the intense negotiations between the owner Massoel Shipping and the kidnappers led to the release of seven Filipinos, a Bosnian, a Croatian, a Romanian, a Slovenian and a Ukrainian, all of whom were then flown to Switzerland.
It remains unclear whether a ransom was paid for the crew’s release. The pirates are reported to belong to the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which demands the region’s population to receive a bigger share of the country’s oil and gas revenues.
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Source: The Defense Post
