Families of 16 Indian sailors held hostage by the Guinea Navy are worried about the safety of the sailors and have pinned their hopes on the government.
The Indian sailors have been held hostage for nearly the last three months, and their families have demanded their immediate release. Gaurav Arora, a resident of the Govind Nagar area in Kanpur, is among the 16 Indian crew members of the ship detained by the Navy of Equatorial Guinea, a country located on the west coast of Africa. As per Gaurav’s family, he had recently joined the merchant navy as a third officer, and he was on a Norway-based ship, “MT Heroic Idun,” that reached AKPO Offshore, a conventional gas development located in ultra-deepwater in Nigeria, on August 8 when he was held hostage along with other crew members of the ship.
The ship had anchored on the international maritime boundary of Nigeria on August 8. The ship’s crew of 26 people, including 16 Indians, was waiting for their turn when the Guinea Navy detained the ship and the crew the next day on suspicion that they had come to steal oil, his family said.
Of them, 15 were taken to a hotel, and 11 have been kept on the ship, they claimed.
The family said that they are worried because the Guinean Navy is going to hand over the ship’s crew to Nigeria.
“It’s a nerve-racking time for us. We are really worried about the safety of my brother and the 15 Indians of the ship crew,” Gaurav’s sister Komal Arora told the press. She said that the Indians might be charged with false allegations, and the Guinea Navy will hand them over to Nigeria. “We all know how sensitive the place is. The government must intervene since we can’t predict how the Nigerian government will treat Indians once the handover is done. It must be stopped,” she appealed.
