Stowaways on board the Grande Tema cargo ship in the Thames Estuary threatened the crew with iron bars on Friday.
The 71,000-tonne Grimaldi Lines vessel had completed most its journey from Lagos in Nigeria to Tilbury in Essex when the the crew were forced to lock themselves in the bridge after being threatened by “four stowaways on the vessel,” according to Paul Kyprianou, a spokesman for Grimaldi Lines.
Officers from Essex Police managed to board and regain control of the vessel around 11pm on Friday, before it was taken to the Port of Tilbury in Essex. The force said in a statement that it had detained four men under the Immigration Act.
The ship’s owner said the four stowaways had been discovered on board four days ago. The group was placed under surveillance in a cabin but escaped on Friday morning before threatening the master of the vessel and crew.
Mr Kyprianou told Sky News the stowaways on The Grande Tema had “managed to get some pieces of iron tubes and things like that that they were using in order to threaten. It’s a small group but obviously you can understand it would be scary. The problem is the four people free on the deck threatening members and requesting them to get closer. No injuries so far but obviously it’s a tense atmosphere.”
Mr Kyprianou said the stowaways asked the ship’s master to navigate closer to the British coast.
“That request was probably because they wanted to jump and reach the British coast,” he added. “The crew reacted and they locked themselves in the bridge of the vessel and so they are safe, we haven’t had any injuries.”
He said the master had contacted “the UK authorities, particularly with the Essex police and the coastguard” around 9.15am on Friday.
After police secured the vessel on Friday night, the cargo ship arrived at the Port of Tilbury just after 4.20am on Saturday.
The force had earlier described it as a “complex incident” but said it was not being treated as either a “hostage, piracy or terror-related incident.”
The Royal National Lifeboat Instititution and the Royal Navy were also involved in dealing with the incident late on Friday night.
Additional reporting by Press Association
