Two Indian seafarers were injured while a third was reportedly kidnapped by pirates during attack on an offshore supply vessel at Owendo Anchorage in Gabon on September 6.
The St Kitts and Navis flagged ship M V Tampen, with 17 Indian crew on board, was sailing from Cameron to the United Arab Emirates when it developed a snag in her propulsion and had to be diverted to Gabon.
While the vessel was at Owendo Anchorage waiting for the spare parts to arrive, three armed men boarded the ship. To ward off the pirates, the crew engaged with the armed men and during the stand-off, chief officer Naurial Vikas and cook Ghosh Sunil suffered gunshot wounds and were undergoing treatment in a hospital in Gabon, according to Korak Sharma, the ship’s chief engineer.
Sharma told
The offshore supply vessel, built in 2002, was heading to UAE for work after being purchased at Cameron by Mumbai-based Prince Marine Transport Services Ltd.
The crew was hired by Mumbai-based Seawisdom Shipping Pvt Ltd.
The search is continuing for the second engineer, said an executive with Seawisdom Shipping.