Thames Estuary: Crew Holed Up in Cargo Ship Threatened by Migrants

The incident occurred at 9:15 a.m. on Friday when four migrants started to threaten the crew with "iron bars".

"The vessel is under the command of the crew there is no question about that… the only problem is that we have four people who are free on the deck and they are threatening crew members and requesting they get close to the coast", Kyprianou stated.

The police, however, refused to treat the situation as a "hostage, piracy or terror-related incident".

The 236-metre-long cargo ship, which was coming from Nigeria, is now circling around a position northeast of Margate, according to navigational tracking sites.