Five crewmembers have been kidnapped from a 6,436 dwt tanker after pirates attacked the vessel offshore Niger Delta, Nigeria on Saturday, according to the UK-based security broker agency Asket.
At least eight pirates boarded the chemical tanker MT Sampitiki after midnight and remained onboard the vessel for four hours, after which they departed the ship with hostages.
The 2008-built vessel reported the attack, which occurred some 30 miles off the coast of Bonga, via VHF.
Asket added that there were no injuries reported to the remaining crewmembers, however, the pirates damaged some of the equipment aboard the tanker.
At the time of the incident the Liberia-flagged tanker was on its way from the Port Harcourt port to the port of Luba in Equatorial Guinea.
Copyright Ships & Ports Ltd. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit given to www.shipsandports.com.ng as the source.