Moroccan and Equatorial Guinean Sailors Released After Gulf of Guinea Kidnapping

In a statement, the Equatorial Guinean government announced the release of the sailors, held hostage by the pirates. The Equatorial Guinean, Santos Ndong Mba, and the Moroccans, Abaamrane Hamid and Chalabi Abdelaziz, arrived Friday "at Malabo International Airport, on a special flight from Calabar, Nigeria," the same Malabo statement continues.

For now, no information has leaked out about the nationality of their captors, the conditions of their detention or those of their release. For its part, Malabo simply "thanked all the parties involved" to allow the release of the hostages.

To recall, the merchant ship, flying the Equatorial Guinean flag, the Elobey 6, was attacked on March 21 by unidentified pirates off the Gabonese port of Port-Gentil. At the time of the attack, the Elobey 6 was sailing between Bata, the economic capital located in the continental part of Equatorial Guinea, and the Equatorial Guinean island of Annonbon, 700 km north of Malabo, it is specified.