The Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Naval Command, Commodore James Osei Kontoh has met with the Turkish Ambassador, as well as some security agencies in the maritime sector in Ghana, to discuss the perennial problem of the menace of piracy attacks in Ghanaian waters.
A maritime stakeholder discussion, which was held early this week to discuss effective means of curbing maritime crime, comes at the back of an attack on a Turkish flagged vessel, MV PAKSOY-1 in Nigerian waters, which was enroute to Côte d’Ivoire, after discharging her cargo (fertilizer) in Douala, Cameroun, from Morocco.
The vessel is reported to have been attacked by about six (6) armed pirates who came with a speed boat, boarded the vessel and took away 10 crew members, who are all Turkish nationals and later abandoned the ship.
GNS EHWOR – a Ghana Navy ship, conducting routine patrols at sea at the time, swiftly responded to the situation, located and offered necessary assistance to the vessel, which had some challenges with some of her navigational equipment, which were vandalized by the pirates.
According to reports, the alleged pirates fired and destroyed most of the navigational equipment at the bridge, totally crippling the vessel and took away the 10 crew members at gun point and abandoned the ship at about 2300 hours, leaving 8 crew members onboard, on Saturday, 13 July 2019.
The vessel was subsequently escorted to Tema by GNS EHWOR on Monday, 15 July 2019 and is currently safe at the Tema Anchorage.
