The Turkish authorities confirmed that the MOZART vessel, which sails under the flag of Liberia and belongs to the Boden company based in Istanbul, was on its way from the city of Lagos in Nigeria to Cape Town in South Africa when it was attacked Saturday morning by pirates in the Strait of Guinea, 100 km away.
Multiple sources confirmed that the pirates killed one of the 19 crew members, an Azerbaijani citizen, and kidnapped 15 people, while three others remained on board the ship, which is currently heading to Port-Gentil in Gabon.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşolu called his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ceyhun Bayramov, to express condolences for the killing of his country’s citizen in the attack on the ship.
The Anadolu Agency reported that Turkey launched efforts to find the kidnapped crew, as embassies in Nigeria and neighboring countries were mobilized for this purpose.
