Navy foils ship hijack in Rivers

The Nigerian Navy (NN) says it has successfully foiled an attempted hijack of merchant vessel (MV) UAL HOUSTON, around Bonny Fairway Buoy in Port Harcourt, Rivers state.

Suleman Dahun, acting director of information, naval headquarters, who disclosed this in a statement issued on Friday in Abuja, said they got a distress call and sent a rescue boat to the vessel.

Dahun said that the incident occurred around 7:45am on July 13.

According to him, six suspected sea robbers boarded the vessel but were unable to access the ship’ s living quarters, bridge or machinery room as the ship was on lock-down by the crew.

“On receipt of the ship’s distress call, the forward operating base (FOB) Bonny, dispatched a boat to rescue the vessel,” Dahun said.

“On sighting the naval patrol boat, the robbers abandoned their hijack plot and fled.”

He said that preliminary investigation revealed that no crew member was abducted nor any item was stolen during the attack.

He noted that the navy had sustained the recent trend of successes in the operations against crude oil theft, illegal bunkering and other illegal activities in the Niger Delta.

Dahun also said that (NNS) PATHFINDER had discovered and destroyed seven illegal refineries around Bolo Creek and Isaka axis in Rivers.

“The illegal refineries destroyed at Bolo Creek had several storage tanks, two wooden boats laden with about 80,000 litres of suspected stolen crude oil and 65,000 litres of illegally refined Automotive Gas Oil (AGO),’’ he said.

“The illegal refineries destroyed in Isaka axis had storage pits laden with 45,000 litres of suspected stolen crude oil and 5,000 litres of illegally refined AGO.”