The Department of Foreign Affairs said Friday 10 Filipino seafarers who were abducted last month by pirates operating in the Gulf of Guinea were set to return home on April 19.
In a statement, the department said the 10 Filipino crewmen, along with five other nationalities, were freed by their captors on April 11, 2021, a month after they were taken hostage while aboard the chemical tanker MT David B off the coast of Benin.
The six other Filipino crew members of Davide B who were spared from the kidnapping arrived home on April 3, 2021, with the help of their Dutch employer and the local manning agency Elburg Shipmanagement Philippines Inc. who secured their release and their immediate repatriation.
De Poli Shipmanagement said its vessel MT Davide B was attacked about 210 nautical miles south of Cotonou, Benin, on March 15, 2021.
The MT Davide B is a chemical tanker was on a commercial voyage from Riga, Latvia, to Lagos, Nigeria, at the time of the attack and was flying the Maltese flag.
