By RFIPublished on 12/23/2019 Modified on 12/23/2019 at 1:41 a.m.
A Gabonese was killed and four Chinese abducted when pirates attacked ships in the bay of Libreville on the night of Saturday to Sunday. This hostage-taking took place in the Gabon estuary, an area usually preserved from pirate raids.
The Gulf of Guinea is the new epicenter of maritime piracy, but the harbor of Libreville was preserved until now. This is no longer the case. Unidentified kidnappers aboard fast boats reached the right bank of the Gabon estuary last weekend. They attacked, inter alia, two fishing boats belonging to the Sino-Gabonese company Sigapêche for which the four abducted Chinese worked, and a ship of the Satram company, for which the killed captain worked, a Gabonese national.
In a video speech, government spokesperson Edgard Anicet Mboumbou Miyakou assures that the Gabonese security forces are on the job: " Immediately alerted, the defense and security forces took action to secure the area and research the authors with the cooperation of Interpol and sub-regional organizations. "
The Gulf of Guinea has become, in recent years, a haunt of pirates, even more dangerous than the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia. Thirty sailors have been kidnapped since mid-August. Most were released after a few weeks.
comments