PIRATES ON BOARD
PIRATES ON BOARD
Description
In 2015, just off the Nigerian coast, pirates mount a deadly attack on a Greek tanker. A crew member describes each moment as it unfolded - and what it felt like to survive.
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11 Podcasts
DOWN BY THE SEASIDE
Tags
Credits
Field Reporter
- Biktwria Delakobia
Interviewee
- O afhghths zhthse pseudwnymia
Podcast Producer
- Magia Filippopoulou
Sound Designer
- Iasonas THeofanou
Sound Editor
- Dhmhtrhs Papadakhs
Video Director
- Magda Martzoukou
Cinematographer
- Nikos Mandhlas
Voiceover
- Γιάννης Νιάρρος
Music
- William Ryan Fritch
It was a VCC tanker, a ship carrying oil. We had gone in a previous port and had picked up half a load. And we went to the last one to get the rest of the load.
We were in the bay. Next to us was another ship, loading up and they would finish and we would go in. We knew that there was piracy in the region, but not that much. Because we were in the bay, and supposedly when you are in the bay, there is no piracy like there is outside.
It was January. Nine o’clock at night. I was in my cabin and I heard the captain calling: “Pirates! Pirates! Pirates! Everyone down to the safe room!” There is a space in the engine room which closes and secures, where we all get in. The doors close, they secure. And no one has access there.
We went to the engine room, where the space is for when there is a piracy incident. “Are we all here?” We saw that someone was missing. People are missing! Two second mates were missing, a sailor and the chief mate. Since we were not all in, the door won't close. The doors stayed open.
The pirates were on the ship and they were on the bridge. They had gotten up on the bridge. And everyone they found, they would take hostage. They had taken four people. They threw them at sea and they had small boats underneath, they put them in and took them out, on land. No one resists there. If you resist, you’re a goner.
It’s hard. You think about a lot of things those minutes. That I might not go back home again, everything.
We heard the captain calling from the speaker phones. “Everyone come out because there is someone hurt on the deck!” We were down in the engine room, we got out, we opened the exit door to the deck, and we didn’t care if there were another ten pirates waiting for us outside. We didn’t even think about it. At the time, our thoughts were with the man injured in front of us.
The pirates had shot him with the gun and left. They had shot him in the abdomen. He was conscious and kept telling us: “You know something? Do something! I am in pain!” But what could we do? We did what we could.
He was bleeding out. He was a chief mate, and the one who knows all the medical stuff. The captain was giving us instructions: “Give him oxygen, do this, do CPR, do this, do that...” but the bullet had caught him in the abdomen and he had internal bleeding...
The captain was struggling for hours for a helicopter or some large vessel to come get him. It didn’t happen. To see someone, a colleague of yours telling you: “You know something? Do something! Save me!” This is difficult to watch. And you can’t do anything for him, what can you do... He passed away half an hour later. He left a young child behind, orphaned.
Then, several hours later, after many efforts by the captain, a boat came, they took him and got him out. We then left Nigeria, we returned to the Persian Gulf, and I left after one-one and a half month, I disembarked. And when I left the ship, I went to his family, because I knew them, I went to their house, I spoke to them, I saw them. That. What can you tell them.
The others, they took them out and they had them there for a month. They had them for a month and negotiated with the company, what ransom they wanted. And they were looking, I mean the company, how to get them back so they are safe and give them the money. Because afterwards they may have left them at two hundred meters and someone else would take them, and the next ones would ask for more ransom... But a month went by.
I went to Nigeria again this year, for the first time since then. You have the fear, the fear is there. When we go in, I mean, in at this point... I mean those ten days we are in there, it is difficult for us. We don't sleep quietly, anyone.
I went to Nigeria this year twice. I simply didn't think at all that this may happen, because the more you think about it, the worse it gets. Anything can happen, I mean, at sea. You don't focus on this thought. Never.