ANKARA, Turkey (AP) – Armed pirates attacked a Turkish freighter off the West African coast, kidnapping 15 sailors and killing one, officials said on Sunday as Turkey tried to recover the captured crew.
Liberian-flagged M / V Mozart was sailing from Lagos, Nigeria, to Cape Town in South Africa when attacked on Saturday morning 100 nautical miles (185 kilometers) northwest of the island nation of Sao Tomé and Principe.
Turkey’s Maritime Directorate said the crew initially locked themselves in a safe area, but the pirates entered after six hours. During the battle, a crew member died on board. It identified the victim as engineer Farman Ismayilov from Azerbaijan, the only non-Turkish crew member.
After most of the crew was kidnapped, the pirates left the ship in the Gulf of Guinea with three sailors on board, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency. 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 world’s most dangerous sea for piracy, according to the International Maritime Bureau.
Maritime security consultancy Dryad Global described the attack as “an exceptional incident, both because of its severity and its distance from the coast.” Last year, the number of registrations in the waters off West Africa rose from 13 in 2019 to 18, the London-based company added.
Mevlut Cavusoglu, the Turkish Foreign Minister, said he had spoken to the senior officer left behind on the Mozart, Furkan Yaren, and that the morale and physical condition of the sailors on board were good.
“We are continuing the coordinated negotiations for the release” of the abducted sailors, he said. “The pirates have yet to respond.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has spoken to Yaren twice, his office said in a tweet. It added that Erdogan has issued orders for the rescue of the kidnapped crew.
“The owners and operators of the M / V Mozart, hijacked at gunpoint in the Gulf of Guinea, have confirmed with regret that one of the crew has been murdered and others have been kidnapped,” said Boden Maritime of Istanbul.
Among the prisoners is the ship’s captain, Mustafa Kaya, 41. His brother Seyit, from Istanbul, said the sailors’ families had been called by Erdogan.
“We hope we see them free and unharmed soon,” he said. Everyone tries. We pray for our brothers. “
In July 2019, 10 Turkish sailors were kidnapped off the coast of Nigeria. They were released less than a month later.