The Russian captain abducted from his ship in Cameroon was allowed by his captors to get in touch with the vessel's owner on Thursday, the Russian Sailors Trade Union said.
The North Spirit vessel, flying the flag of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and owned by Greece's Balthellas Chartering S.A., was attacked by pirates on May 16 while anchored in Cameroon's largest port of Douala.
The attackers took captain Boris Tersintsev and chief engineering officer Igor Shumik hostage and left the ship. The Russian Foreign Ministry said earlier on Thursday the militant Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta could be behind the sailors' abduction.
"He [Tersintsev] said they had been taken to Nigeria; he did not say what group it was," union deputy head Yury Sukhorukov said, adding that the kidnappers had allowed the captain to telephone the ship's owner.
MOSCOW, May 20 (RIA Novosti)
