UK Police Arrest 4 Nigerian Stowaways Aboard A Cargo Ship

UK Police Arrest 4 Nigerian Stowaways Aboard A Cargo Ship

Four stowaways from Nigeria have been arrested in the United Kingdom
after special forces stormed a cargo ship off the country’s coast. The
stowaways, who are suspected migrants had reportedly threatened staff
on-board.  

Special Boat Service (SBS) operatives from Sabre Squadron fast-roped
from helicopters on to the ship, which had been sailing in the Thames
Estuary, Sky News reported. The operation lasted around 25 minutes and
no one on-board was injured.

Essex Police said the vessel was taken to the Port of Tilbury and
four men have been arrested under the Immigration Act. The ship arrived
at the Port of Tilbury in the early hours of Saturday at just after
4.20am.  

Officers boarded the 236-metre long cargo ship, called the Grande
Tema, shortly after 11pm on Friday. Its operator, Grimaldi Lines, had
earlier reported that four stowaways armed with iron tubes had called
for the crew to navigate closer to the coast. The company’s spokesman
Paul Kyprianou told Sky News:

“The vessel was coming from Nigeria. They managed to escape from the
cabin and started threatening the crew, requesting to have the vessel
navigate very close to the coast. We understand they wanted to jump and
reach the British coast.”  

He added that the crew locked themselves in the bridge of the vessel
after the migrants had picked up potentially harmful objects. “They
managed to get whatever they could find on the vessel pieces of iron,
tubes and things like that and this is what they used in order to
threaten,” Kyprianou said.  The vessel had been travelling eastwards
through the English Channel when the migrants were discovered on Friday
morning.