MOSCOW. May 18 (Interfax) - Pirates on Sunday plundered a ship anchored off the coast of Cameroon's largest city and kidnapped its captain and chief mechanic, both of whom are Russian, the Russian Trade Union of Sailors said on Monday, asking Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to "take every measure to release our fellow citizens."
"Currently there is a military boat near the ship and there are armed guards on board the ship," Alexander Bodnya, head of the union's Baltic branch, said in his appeal to Lavrov, posted on the union's website.
The union said 20 armed men had climbed aboard the North Spirit, which flies a St. Vincent and the Grenadines flag, that has a Russian-Ukrainian crew and is managed by the Greek company Balthellas Chartering S.S., while the vessel was anchored off the port of Douala.
The pirates broke all of the North Spirit's radio and navigation equipment and cleaned out the sailors' cabins, taking all of their money and personal belongings. At gunpoint, they forced captain Boris Tersintsev of Vladivostok and chief mechanic Igor Shumik of Arkhangelsk to get into their boat and took them away.
The union said it was unclear what had happened to the two men.