Turkey on Friday announced the release of 15 sailors kidnapped on a cargo ship off the coast of Nigeria last month.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the Mozart’s crew were in good health and would fly back to Turkey from Abuja within days.
“We are going to repatriate our compatriots,” the Anadolu state news agency quoted Cavusoglu to have said.
“They are in good health,” he said without providing details about the crew’s release.
The Mozart had been en route from Nigeria’s economic capital Lagos to Cape Town in South Africa when it was attacked on January 23.
The unidentified armed men killed an Azerbaijani sailor and wounded several of the Liberian-flagged vessel crew.
The ship then sailed on to Gabon before contact was officially lost.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office said he spoke to the ship’s acting captain shortly after the attack to make sure the remaining crew were safe.
The head of the shipping company operating the Mozart told Turkish television the crew would fly home after undergoing health checkups in Nigeria.
Pirate attacks on ships worldwide jumped 20 per cent last year driven by a record spate of kidnappings off West Africa, the International Maritime Bureau said last month.
Out of 135 sailors abducted globally last year, 130 were recorded in the Gulf of Guinea — the highest ever number of crew members kidnapped in the area stretching thousands of kilometres (miles) from Senegal to Angola. (AFP)
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