Two days after suspended pirates abducted eight sailors off Brass coastline in Bayelsa State, the whereabouts and fate of the victims remain unknown.
A security officer told our correspondent that operatives of the Nigerian Navy were making frantic efforts to locate the eight sailors who were on Thursday abducted by unidentified armed gunmen in Bayelsa. The source said the sailors were abducted as they sailed on the Atlantic Ocean close to Brass waters in Brass local government area of the state.
The victims, employees of Tethys Nigeria Limited and Sylver Global Limited, were abducted on April 19, 2017 about 17 nautical miles off Brass terminal. Our source said the armed abductors forcibly boarded the sailors’ vessel after firing numerous rounds of gunshots in the air to scare the sailors. Seven of the victims’ names are Smart Kungborde, Isaiah Ebiewe, Christopher Wisben, Gabriel Enayon, Sylvester Ovwigho, Mathew Enegbuma and Kelly Shaka.
Our security source said the abductors stole their victims’ valuables, forced the sailors into speedboats, and sped off with them to an unknown destination.
According to our source, Nigerian troops based at Egweama in Brass had launched a manhunt for the abductors in order to free the hostages. However, Nigerian Navy officials at the Central Naval Command Headquarters in Yenagoa, the capital of Bayelsa State, have declined to comment on the record on the abduction.
SaharaReporters could not confirm a claim that a powerful politician and retired ranking naval officer from the state owned the ill-fated vessel. The source of that claim added that the vessel’s owner had established contact with the gunmen and was negotiating the sailors’ release in exchange for a ransom.
