Kasargod, Aug 1: Vasanth Kumar of Totattil in Melparamba and V K Babu of Uduma Palakunni, Kasargod who were on board with 24 others in MV Cotton, a Maltese flagged chemical tanker which was hijacked by pirates of the coast of Gabon to get the oil in the vessel, finally reached home on July 31.
All the 24 crew members of the vessel were released at Ghana of Africa.
Babu recalling the incident said that on July 17, the pirates hijacked the ship and took it to Bridge House. The ship was sailing from Turkey towards Port Gentil of Gabon, Africa. He said that the crew had fallen asleep, making use of which the pirates gained entry into the ship. Soon, the crew was alert but only woke to see guns being pointed at them.
"The pirates had seized our mobile phones, cash and jewellery and even threw away the CCTV camera and hard disk in the vessel to the sea. The satellite phone too was destroyed”, he said.
Pirates sailed our ship towards Bridge House, Nigeria. They stole diesel and cargo blocks from our ships and replaced name board by a name Arami before they fled," he added.
According to Babu and Vasnth Kumar ship had crew members from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, Kolkata, Odisha and Goa.
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