Five Lithuania crew members have been taken hostage from a cargo ship off the coast of Nigeria, the Baltic state's foreign ministry said Tuesday.
Five Lithuania crew members have been taken hostage from a cargo ship off the coast of Nigeria, the Baltic state's foreign ministry said Tuesday. The ministry said in a statement that according to available information none of the crew of the Lithuanian-flagged refrigerator vessel Saturnas had been injured in the attack by unidentified perpetrators.
The current location of the hostages was unknown, the ministry said.
The Saturnas belongs to Lithuania's Limarko Shipping Company.
"The ship has not been damaged, it has not been pirated," company president Vytautas Lygnugaris was quoted as saying by the Lithuanian-based Baltic News Service.
"The attack is 'fresh' -- it occurred eight or nine hours ago -- so I don't want to make any further comments because we don't have any more precise information," Lygnugaris said.
The ship had a total crew of 14, all of them Lithuanian citizens.
It is not the first time that vessels have been targeted off Nigeria.
Last month, Nigerian militants freed six foreign crew members of a chemical tanker seized more than two weeks earlier in the restive Niger Delta.
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