Pirates hijack passenger boat at Nembe-Brass waterways

Barely 48 hours after an ambush that killed three passengers on Tuesday, gunmen suspected to be sea pirates on Thursday hijacked another passenger boat along Nembe-Brass waterways.
The pirates trailed the passenger boat after it had dropped its occupants at Brass from Nembe before hijacking the boat.
Community sources who witnessed the incident said the suspected pirates armed with sophisticated weapons shot sporadically into the air before seizing the boat.
The driver of the boat and his crewmen were later dropped off at the creeks by the pirates who took the boat to unknown destination.
Confirming the incident, the Chairman of Bayelsa chapter of the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria, Mr Lloyd Sese, said that the activities of pirates on the waterways was making life unbearable.
Sese said that the union had appealed to relevant authorities to come to the aid of commuters on the waterways, saying that the attack on boats has become a frequent affair.
A youth leader from Brass Local Government Area of the state, Mr Robert Desmond, condemned the incessant sea pirate attacks on the Nembe-Brass waterways.
Desmond described the acts as not only senseless but inhuman and wondered why a group of Bayelsa youth should be terrorising their own people.
He urged security personnel to be on alert particularly as the Brass-Nembe people are in dire need of marine security.
He called on them to apprehend the pirates, destroy every network and arsenal they may have in their possession in order to bring respite to the community.
Mr Asinim Butswat, a Deputy Superintendent of Police and Spokesman of Bayelsa Police Command, also confirmed the incident.
Butswat said that the command was intensifying efforts to check criminality and restore security in the area.