The 20 hijackers of the 'Abdullah' have demanded a $50 million ransom and threatened to kill the crew if there was any delay in payment. The ship was due to reach Somalia anchjorage early on March 14. All the crew members were reportedly safe and sound for the time being. A European Union vessel was tracking the ship as it headed toward the coast. At that time, there was a gunfight between the two sides. However, the raiding vessel later retreated fearing the death of the sailors held hostage on the Bangladeshi vessel. Meanwhile relatives received calls from board: "Our ship has been attacked. The ship is being hijacked and taken to the coast of Somalia. We are all being held in a room. We have not been beaten. By the grace of Allah, we are doing well, so far, please pray!" These were the words of ASM Saiduzzaman, chief engineer of the hijacked 'Abdullah' to his wife Mehreen Safrin, living in the RG Naogaon area of Naogaon city Zaman, by phone on the night of March 12. On March 13 morning, a recorded voice message came to Mehreen's phone again. In that message, a voice was heard saying, "Sir is fine. Sir is sleeping after eating Sehri. If you have any messages, send an SMS to this number." Mehreen, worried about her husband, said, "The work of the ship is very risky. Sometimes when he goes deep into the sea, there is no contact with him for 15-20 days. I used to worry then. I would only get in touch with him when he came back within the network. But this time the matter is very worrying. They have fallen into the hands of pirates. I see in the news that if they don't get the ransom, they will kill them one by one. “I am spending my time in extreme anxiety in this situation. I can't go anywhere for help with my one-year-old daughter and ailing in-laws. Our appeal to the government and the shipping company authorities is to somehow rescue my husband from the pirates." Qaiyum, a former principal of Sapahar Government College in Nawabganj and former president of Nawabganj District Press Club, received a call from his son's number on March 13 at 3:30 p.m. He called and said that their ship had been attacked by pirates. The ship is being taken to the coast of Somalia. After that, he sent a voice SMS from another number in the night and the next morning. He said in the voice SMS that he was doing well. The pirates did not beat him. They are all being held in a room. They are not being given much water to drink as there is a shortage of food and water on the ship." Omn March 12 at 1:30 pm Bangladesh time, Somali pirates had boarded and took control of the ship, en route from Maputo with 58,000 tonnes of coal. All 23 sailors on board were Bangladeshis. The ship is owned by SR Shipping Limited, an associate company of Chattogram’s Kabir Group.
News
FV NICOLAS JEREMY
Aboard the 'Nicolas-Jérémy' which was off the coast of the Côte d’Opale, Dunkirk, on March 13, 2024, the fisherman Ludovic Caloin, 51, died following a heart attack. The ship requested medical assistance from the CROSS Gris-Nez after he suffered a cardio-respiratory arrest. The CROSS then established a telephone conference between the maritime medical consultation center in Toulouse, the maritime medical coordination ambulance in Le Havre and the ship. A medical evacuation by helicopter was recommended, and the CROSS Gris-Nez deployed the Dauphin helicopter of the French Navy base in Le Touquet, reinforced by a medical team from the mobile emergency and maritime resuscitation service from the Boulogne-sur-Mer hospital. The medical team was dropped off aboard the trawler. Despite the cardiac massage provided by the crew and the intervention of emergency services, the victim could not be resuscitated. The sailor was declared dead by the medical team before being brought ashore at the port of Dunkirk.
SALVAMAR MINTAKA
On Feb 13, 2024, the Spanish flagged fishing vessel 'Trasmallero' was adrift near the port of #Barcelona, due to a mechanical failure. Salvamento Marítimo tasked the 'Salvamar Mintaka' to assist. It took the ship in tow and safely pulled it to the fishing dock of Barcelona.
OPEN ARMS
Since March 12, the 'Open Arms' is underway to Gaza with a barge loaded with 200 tons of aid alongside, after a four-day delay, via a new Cyprus-Gaza sea corridor set up to ship aid into the war-torn enclave. World Central Kitchen, the U.S. charity behind the mission, plans to provide millions of meals through the corridor. The construction of a jetty on the Gaza coast that WCK will use to offload the aid was well underway. The goal of the mission, for which the United Arab Emirates has provided the bulk of the funding, was to establish a highway of boats and barges stocked with millions of meals continuously headed towards Gaza. WCK, which has set up a joint operation in the port city of Larnaca with Spanish refugee charity Open Arms to stockpile, pack and palletize rice, flour, legumes, canned vegetables, and canned fish and meat, had a further 500 tons of supplies ready to go. The 'Open Arms' had been scheduled to set sail on March 8 in the night on a pilot mission, timed to coincide with the announcement by the European Union, Britain, the United Arab Emirates and United States of a new Cyprus-Gaza maritime corridor to ship aid to a temporary port the United States is constructing on the coast of Gaza. The sailing was postponed first to March 11 and then March 12, due to technical difficulties surrounding the offloading of the aid once it arrived off the coast of Gaza due to the fact construction work on the port the United States is building had yet to begin. Report with photo: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2024/03/12/cyprus-first-aid-ship-gaza/6141710233827/
OSCAR I
Beached at Gadani 13.03.24 https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=887160223205345&set=pcb.887161106538590
TRUE CONFIDENCE
The two remaining Filipino crew members of the 'True Confidence' returned to the Philippines on MArch 14. They arrived via a chartered medical evacuation flight at 6:45 a.m. They had suffered serious injuries in the missile attack but they were cleared fit for travel by medical authorities in Djibouti on March 13. The two were taken to a hospital where they have been reunited with their families and will continue their recovery. They requested privacy. On March 12, a first batch of 11 Filipino crew members was repatriated. One of them had minor injuries. Two Filipinos were killed and three were severely injured in the attack. The remains of the two Filipino seafarers were expected to be retrieved soon as their ship has reached Oman under tow.
MARGARITAVILLE A.S.P
A Florida man was arrested on March 11, after a 27-year-old woman from Florida was found dead inside her cabin of the 'MArgaritaville at Sea Paradise', that departed Palm Beach on March 10 for a two-night sailing to Freeport. Officers responded to the cruise at around 5:30 p.m. after cruise employees contacted them about an unresponsive female passenger. Medical staff performed CPR, but she was declared dead. The companion was arrested after the discovery and confiscation of a quantity of suspected cocaine from the cabin. All appropriate authorities were notified, including the FBI. The company was fully cooperating with the FBI and its investigation. During the investigation, officers confiscated suspected cocaine and arrested a 32-year-old man.
KONINGSDAM
A norovirus outbreak affected 110 people aboard the 'Koningsdam', which was underway with 2,522 passengers on board. 98 passengers and 12 crew members reported symptoms of illness, primarily experiencing diarrhea and vomiting, as reported by the CDC agency (USA's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). The 'Koningsdam' was on a roundtrip voyage in the North Pacific through Honolulu (Feb 26), Uturoa and Papeete (March 3 and 7) after departing from its homeport San Diego on Feb 17, 2024. In response to the outbreak, Holland America and the ship's crew implemented enhanced cleaning and disinfection protocols, as well as isolating affected passengers and crew members, among other precautionary measures.
SEAWAY ALBATROSS
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10160123739340036&set=gm.10162889971863943&idorvanity=6884293942
SUKHOTHAI
All 58 retrieved items of the 'Sukothai' were transferred to the Juk Samet Port at the Sattahip Naval Base aboard the 'Ocean Valor' on March 12 for urther investigations. It could take at least a mongth to retrieve the frigate's CCTV footage. Four missions were conducted during the salvage oeperation which was wrapped up on March 11, including finding the remains of five crew members, investigating the ship's mechanics, disarming weapons and retrieving sentimental items. All divers, after conducting a total of 82 dives oor 67 hours and 53 minutes underwater, were safe. The divers had been divided into two teams. The first consisted of 14 divers, seven each from the RTN and US Navy, who dove with surface supply air quipment and used the 'Ocean Valor' as base. The other consisted of 40 scuba divers from the RTN with the HTMS 'Mannai' as base. The operation kicked off on Feb 22 as part of the US Navy's Cobra Gold joint exercise, 36,9 kilometers from the shore in the Bang Sapah district. Reports wiht photos: https://www.thephuketnews.com/sukhothai-salvage-operation-ends-memorial-planned-91582.php https://maritime-executive.com/index.php/article/search-of-lost-thai-navy-frigate-ends-without-finding-missing-crew
GEO BARENTS
On March 11, the 'Geo Barents' docked in Genoa, carrying 129 migrants. Other castaways were disembarked in Civitavecchia, Lazio. Among them were vulnerable women, men, and several very young children, ending the latest rescue operation carried out by the ship operated by Doctors Without Borders (MSF). On March 7, the 'Geo Barents' rescued 261 people from two overcrowded wooden boats. The survivors, including several women and children, were of 12 different nationalities and had left the previous night from the coast of Libya. The Red Cross has set up a hosting facility for the 129 migrants who remained on the 'Geo Barents' after it reached the port of Civitavecchia, chosen by Italian authorities as the destination for the disembarkation of the first group of rescued passengers. MSF has complained about "senseless multiple disembarkations", recalling that, "under international law, everything should be done to 'reduce as much as possible the time spent by rescued people on the ship that assists them'. MSF criticized Italian authorities last week for ordering the rescued migrants' disembarkation in two distant ports. The choice of two ports and the fact that they were "so distant" implied "duplicating maneuvers, diminishing efficiency and increasing costs, as well as inflicting further suffering on these people who instead need protection and aid," the president of MSF Italia, Monica Minardi, denounced, highlighting the lengthy transit time between Civitavecchia and Genoa, impacting the 'Geo Barents's availability for potential rescues in the Central Mediterranean.
OPEN ARMS
The 'Open Arms' with a barge carrying 200 tons of much-needed food aid was slowly sailing toward the Gaza Strip. The current voyage is the first of several planned as part of a maritime aid corridor to the Gaza Strip. The ship was slowly sailing south of the coast of Israel on March 14. On March 13, Cypriot Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said a second aid ship with bigger capacity was being prepared at a virtual meeting on the maritime corridor with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and senior ministers and officials from the UK, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the European Union and the United Nations. The ministers agreed that there was no meaningful substitute to land routes via Egypt and Jordan and entry points from Israel into Gaza for aid delivery at scale. They also called on Israel to open the port of Ashdod, which lies north of Gaza, for aid deliveries. Since the beginning of the war on Oct 7, 2023, 303,930 tons of aid have been delivered to Gaza, according to COGAT, the Israeli military body that handles Palestinian civilian affairs.
WILSON SKAW
After the grounding of the 'Wilson Skaw' in the Húnaflói fjord on April 18, 2023, loaded with salt en routefrom Hvammstangi to Hólmavík, the traffic accident investigation committee has now advised the Ministry of Infrastructure that a regulation must be created for the water and pilotage of ships. In the Húnaflói there are underwater skerries and shoals that are dangerous for shipping. The transport authority should update the digital editions of shipping maps, so that it is clear in which areas there is a need for special local knowledge and where pilots can be found. There appears to be no legal obligation to have a local pilot on board. The final report of the committee of inquiry therefore required that the transport authority must have a list of licensed pilots for ships on the way to or from the port. The authority issues the licenses and also has to maintain the list of pilots, but the latter has not been done in the past. There is also no official list of coastal pilots, and information about where to find a licensed pilot for the Icelandic high seas is not available. Furthermore, the investigative committee recommended that the shipping company Wilson Ship Management AS affected by the accident follow the international agreement on the fair treatment of crew after an accident. At the time of the accident, the captain of the 'Wilson Skaw' refused to provide psychological support to his crew. Communication on board, especially on the bridge, also needed to be improved, according to the report, and recommended the implementation of Bridge Resource Management, a training plan that is also mandatory for pilots. The 'Wilson Skaw' was refloated on April 21 and taken over by the shipbreakers Green Yard Kleven on Aug 4 for recyling.
NORWEGIAN SKY
The Department of Immigration and the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force were soliciting assistance from the public in locating three Colombian nationals, comprising one man and two women, who disembarked from the 'Norwegian Star' at Tortola Island, but failed to return before it departed for homeport La Romana. Mr. Jean Carlo Ospina Cano, Ms. Pamela Mesa Escobar, and Ms. Yesica Yojana Marin Ramirez arrived in the Road Town Tortila aboard the 'Norwegian Sky' on March 10, 2024 but didn't re-board before the vessel's departure. The immigration authorities and law enforcement have issued a public advisory featuring photographs of the three, urging individuals with information regarding their whereabouts to come forward promptly. Individuals possessing knowledge that could assist in locating the missing Colombian nationals are encouraged to contact the Department of Immigration at 468-4717, 468-4754, 468-4705, or the RVIPF’s hotline at 311.
YILDIZLAR 2
Beached at Chittagong 13.03.24 https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=898659448718268&set=a.518272956756921
NAVE CAIO DUILIO
The 'Caio Duilio', serving in the European Union’s naval mission in the Red Sea, has shot down two drones as acts of self-defense, Italy’s Defense Staff said on March 12. The destroyer already had shot down another drone on March 2. The EU’s mission Aspides in the Red Sea was launched in February to help protect the key maritime trade route from drone and missile attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militia.