An Italian coast guard official says pirates boarded an Italian-flagged tanker off the coast of Nigeria, robbed the crew of money and then took three Filipino crew members with them ashore.
Vittorio Alessandro, with the coast guard office in Rome, says the pirates stayed aboard tanker, Dominia, for some 14 hours Tuesday before taking a lifeboat to the Nigerian coast.
He said the whereabouts of the three Filipinos were unknown. Three Italians, including the captain, and 16 other Filipinos were left aboard.
Alessandro says he doesn’t know the pirates’ nationalities or whether the tanker was carrying oil.
He says the tanker sent an SOS when the pirates boarder at 0200GMT.