• PIRATES: Around eight armed men attacked the Italian-flag supply ship “Remas” off the coast of oil-rich Campeche state on Tuesday wounding two crew members and escaping aboard fast boats, the Mexican Navy confirmed.
• ATTACKS: Attacks against commercial and cargo ships in Mexico have jumped from 48 in 2016 to 200 in 2018, according to Mexican Government data; similar attacks have happened recently against Mexico’s state-owned oil company offshore platforms.
• SOMALIA: Prior to Tuesday’s incident off the Bay of Campeche in Mexico, the only other incident where shipowner Micoperi faced an attack by armed groups was off the coast of Somalia in 2009, when 16 crew members were taken hostage for 4 months.
• NIGHTMARE: “My son who lives in Mexico City immediately left to see our boys at the hospital in Ciudad del Carmen…We’re very concerned and we all thought about the prior nightmare [in Somalia]”, Silvio Bartolotti, Micoperi’s general manager, told Italian newspaper Corriera della Sera.
