Nigerian Navy foils hijack in Rivers State

The Nigerian Navy says it has successfully foiled an attempted hijack of merchant vessel (MV) UAL HOUSTON, around Bonny Fairway Buoy in Port Harcourt, Rivers state.

Acting Director of Information, Naval Headquarters, Suleman Dahun, disclosed this in a statement issued on Friday in Abuja.

He said they got a distress call and sent a rescue boat to the vessel.

Dahun said that the incident occurred around 7:45am on July 13.

According to him, six suspected sea robbers boarded the vessel but were unable to access the ship’ s living quarters, bridge or machinery room as the ship was on lock-down by the crew.

“On receipt of the ship’s distress call, the forward operating base (FOB) Bonny, dispatched a boat to rescue the vessel.

“On sighting the naval patrol boat, the robbers abandoned their hijack plot and fled,” Dahun said.

He added that preliminary investigation revealed that no crew member was abducted nor any item was stolen during the attack.