cryptogon.com

Cape Verde coastguards reported that the Russian owned and crewed merchant vessel, which is thought to have been hijacked, has been seen cruising over 460 miles from archipelago, which lies 280 miles off the coast of Senegal.

“The Arctic Sea is some 400 nautical miles off one of the islands of Cape Verde, therefore outside its territorial waters,” said an official, without specifying the vessel’s precise location.

The Cape Verde authorities have hinted that the sighting may have followed an ongoing surveillance operation of the Maltese-flagged vessel by Nato or other international security agencies.

“The Cape Verde coastguard is in contact with international agencies and organisations that are continually informing it of the movement and progress of the ship,” said the official.

Later, the French defence ministry confirmed the sighting, saying the ship had been “found”, and was last seen about 520 miles off the islands.

Russian diplomatic sources said that at least one frigate was headed to the West African islands on Friday night in pursuit.

The sighting of the ship, the first since Aug 1, comes three weeks after its Russian crew of 15 reported a first boarding of the vessel in Swedish waters by 12 armed, English-speaking, men disguised as police officers.

According to European Union officials a second attack was reported a week later off the Portuguese coast, possibly by intruders who had remained as stowaways after the first attack.

The Russian state news agency Itar-Tass has reported that the original tip-off giving the Arctic Sea’s location came from Russia’s old Cold War rival Nato, with the French armed forces playing a key role.

Cmdr Chris Davies, the spokesman at Nato’s British maritime headquarters, acknowledged that the Western military alliance had been monitoring the situation since the first reports of a possible hijacking.

Five Russian naval vessels, including frigates and nuclear submarines, are in the region after being scrambled on Wednesday in an international maritime hunt for the 4000 ton ship.

The sighting off Cape Verde, a key staging post for cocaine trafficking from Latin America, will renew speculation that the vessel could been have been hijacked by drug or arms smugglers.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, was in Cape Verde on Friday on the final leg of an 11-day tour of Africa.

At a joint press conference with Jose Maria Pereira Neves, Cape Verde’s prime minister, Mrs Clinton praised the former Portuguese colony as representing “a new and emerging Africa”.

The Arctic Sea left the Finnish port of Pietarsaari on July 23 en route to the Algerian port of Bejaia with an official cargo manifest of sawn timber.

The ship has food supplies for a 45-day voyage and enough fuel for 40 days of cruising.

Russia’s navy fleet and two nuclear submarines have been scrambled as efforts intensified to locate the Maltese-flagged Arctic Sea and its 15-strong Russian crew.

Experts and marine authorities continued to be baffled today that the 4,000-tonne vessel “disappeared” after its last official recorded positioning off northern France on July 30.

Mikhail Voitenko, editor of Russia’s Sovfracht maritime bulletin, said the ship, carrying sawn timber from Finland to Algeria, might have been targeted because it was also loaded with an unknown cargo.

He told the Russia Today news channel: “The only sensible answer is that the vessel was loaded secretly with something we don’t know anything about.

“We have to remember that before loading in Finland the vessel stayed for two weeks in a shipyard in Kaliningrad.

“I’m sure it cannot be drugs or illegal criminal cargo. I think it is something much more expensive and dangerous.

“It seems some third party didn’t want this transit to be fulfilled so they made this situation highly sophisticated and very complicated.”

The Arctic Sea made routine radio contact with Dover Coastguard as it was about to enter the Strait of Dover from the North Sea at 1.52pm on July 28.

Days later Interpol informed the British Coastguard that the ship had been hijacked days before in the Baltic Sea.

According to reports, it was boarded by up to 10 armed men purporting to be anti-drugs police on July 24.

Some 12 hours later, the intruders apparently left the ship on a high-speed inflatable boat and allowed the vessel to continue on its passage but with its communications equipment damaged.

By the time Interpol alerted Dover Coastguard about the apparent hijacking, the Arctic Sea had already passed through the English Channel, UK Coastguards said.

The ship failed to reach its destination at Bejaia in northern Algeria on August 4, as a supposed crew member on board the vessel told Dover Coastguard when radio contact was made.

It was last recorded on the AISLive ship tracking system off the coast of Brest, northern France, just before 1.30am on July 30, but its whereabouts now remains a mystery.

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has ordered all Russian navy ships in the Atlantic to search for the missing vessel, the country’s Itar-Tass news agency reported.

Mark Clark, of the UK’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), said Dover Coastguard was unsuspecting of anything untoward as a supposed crew member radioed before the ship journeyed through the Channel.

He said: “It’s bizarre. There is no coastguard I know who can remember anything like this happening. Who would think that a hijacked ship could pass through one of the most policed and concentrated waters in the world?”

The MCA said it was informed a Portuguese coastal patrol aircraft spotted the vessel later but its current whereabouts remain unknown.