Armed attackers have abducted five Polish seamen, including the captain and three officers, from a cargo ship on Nigerian waters.
Polish foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski said the five were abducted from the ship Szafir on Thursday night.
A further 11 crew members, who escaped abduction by barricading themselves inside the ship, were safe and in contact by phone, he said.
Sea Industry and Navigation Minister Marek Grobarczyk said it looks like the attack was carried out by pirates.
The ship, which belongs to a Polish company but is flying a Cypriot flag, is some 30 nautical miles from the Nigerian coast.
There were no reports of injuries and no traces of blood were found, Mr Waszczykowski said. The ship was damaged when the attackers opened fire.
He said no demands for ransom have been made and the government is waiting for contact from the abductors either directly or via the Nigerian government to be able to open negotiations.
The ship was travelling from Antwerp in Belgium to Nigeria and was carrying metal cranes and other items, not containers.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here