Tanker Crew Members Rescued More Than Five weeks After Gulf of Guinea Pirate Attack

Six crew members who were kidnapped by pirates from a Danish-owned ship in the Gulf of Guinea in late March have been rescued from an undisclosed location in Nigeria, the vessel's owner said on Monday.

The Liberian-flagged oil and chemical tanker Monjasa Reformer with 16 crew members was hijacked on March 25 by five armed assailants some 140 miles west of the Republic of Congo's Port Pointe-Noire.

"All recovered crew members are in a relatively good health condition given the difficult circumstances they have been under in the last more than five weeks," Monjasa CEO Anders Ostergaard said in a statement.

The crew members have all received medical checks and are now being repatriated to their home countries and families, he added. 

The hijackers had abandoned the ship five days after the attack, taking six of the crew members with them.

 (Reuters - Reporting by Louise Breusch Rasmussen, editing by Terje Solsvik)