Navy rescues drifting ship with 200 on board

The Nigerian Navy has rescued some 200 passengers of a Gabon-bound ship that had been adrift with engine trouble for weeks in the Atlantic, officials
said on Monday.

Captain Gabriel Onah, commander of the Nigerian Naval Ship Okemiri that towed in the stricken vessel, the MNV Muloliya, said the passengers had lost hope of rescue as their water and food had ran out. They included Ghanaians, Nigerians, Senegalese and Sierra Leoneans, a few of whom were children.

“The people were looking very sick. They had no water and no food,” he told reporters in the southern city of Port Harcourt.

The navy has provided water and food and allowed them medical care. “Since their destination is not Nigeria, the international regulation is that we provide them all the necessary help we can,” Onah said.

The Muloliya, under Nigerian registry, was towed to anchor on Saturday near the Brass oil export terminal, owned by the transnational Agip.

The maritime route from West Africa to Gabon has come under the spotlight recently because of the frequency of accidents with high death tolls. There have been frequent reports of a brisk business in the trafficking of minors to work on plantations or as domestics servants in Gabon and other countries in Africa’s equatorial region.
However, naval officials could not confirm if any of children on board were likely victims of child trafficking.