Police in Ghana have arrested four people in connection with the kidnapping of Chinese crewmembers from a Ghanaian-registered fishing vessel in late March – and the suspects include other crewmembers from the same vessel, a police spokeswoman said Tuesday.
On March 27, the Ghanaian-registered, Chinese-operated fishing vessel Mengxin 1 was boarded by armed pirates at a position about 16 nautical miles off Accra. Some of the crew hid to evade capture; the pirates assembled the crewmembers they could locate on deck, took their mobile phones and destroyed the vessel’s radios. After about three hours, the pirates left the vessel in two speedboats, taking with them the captain, chief mate, and chief engineer, all Chinese nationals. The remaining crew navigated Mengxin 1 closer to shore to get cell coverage to report the incident, and the Ghanaian Navy began a search for the perpetrators – without success.
On Tuesday, the Director-General of Ghana’s Criminal Investigations Department (CID), Lydia Yaako Donkor, announced that the three hostages have been safely recovered and four suspects have been arrested. Donkor gave a detailed account of the ordeal: the pirates took their hostages to the Niger Delta and moved them inland to a remote camp, where they were held until April 25, when the pirates departed and abandoned the victims on site. The three victims made their way to a local village, where they got help from residents and contacted the Chinese embassy in Lagos for assistance. Working with the embassy, the CID arranged for the victims’ safe return to Ghana and debriefed them after their arrival.
In an unusual twist, police have arrested the Mengxin 1’s bosun, the vessel’s Chinese cook and the Chinese second engineer in connection with the kidnapping, Donkor said, along with one additional individual (below). She did not provide further details of the charges, and the investigation is still under way.
