{"id":116573,"date":"2021-03-07T18:05:27","date_gmt":"2021-03-07T10:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=116573"},"modified":"2021-03-07T18:05:43","modified_gmt":"2021-03-07T10:05:43","slug":"crew-of-chinese-boat-freed-from-kidnappers-says-nigerian-army","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=116573","title":{"rendered":"Crew of Chinese boat freed from kidnappers, says Nigerian army"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img src=\"https:\/\/apicms.thestar.com.my\/uploads\/images\/2021\/03\/07\/1068382.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>PORT HARCOURT (Nigeria), March 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212; The Nigerian army freed 14 crew members of a Chinese fishing boat from their pirate kidnappers on Saturday after a month in captivity, following a ransom payment, the military said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The crew of six Chinese, three Indonesians, a Gabon national and four Nigerians were kidnapped in early February when the tuna fishing boat was attacked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;A ransom of $300,000 was paid before we arrived to rescue them,&#8221; and bring them safely to Nigeria, Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Yahaya said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kidnap attacks on ships for ransom have become common occurences in the Gulf of Guinea which runs from Senegal to Angola, taking in the southwest coast of Nigeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The perpetrators are usually Nigerian pirates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Gulf of Guinea accounted for more 95 percent of all maritime kidnappings last year &#8212; 130 out of 135 cases, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), which monitors security at sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Chinese fishing boat, registered in Gabon, was seized by such pirates using high-speed boats off the Gabonese port of Port-Gentil on Feb 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The boat with the crew still on board was spotted some 110 kilometres from the Nigerian island of Bonny a few days after the attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maritime security consultants Dryad Global said the hijacked Chinese boat was used as a &#8220;mothership&#8221; for attacks on oil tankers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea has its roots in Nigeria&#8217;s Niger Delta where oil wealth has failed to reach local populations and deep poverty has stoked militancy and armed unrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gangs speed out from swamps to raid passing vessels, snatch crews and spirit them back to Nigeria&#8217;s shores. &#8212; NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PORT HARCOURT (Nigeria), March 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212; The Nigerian army freed 14 crew members of a Chinese fishing boat from their pirate kidnappers on Saturday after a month in captivity, following a ransom payment, the military said. The crew of six Chinese, three Indonesians, a Gabon national and four Nigerians were kidnapped in early February [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":116574,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213,215],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116573"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/116574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}