At the request of Nigerian authorities, Equatorial Guinea detained the Heroic Idun, a vessel capable of carrying 2 million barrels of oil, on Aug. 17 for sailing without an identifying flag, fleeing from the Nigerian navy and sailing in Equatorial Guinean waters without prior authorization.
Nigerian Navy spokesman Commodore Kayode Ayo-Vaughan told Reuters that two Nigerian naval vessels had begun escorting the ship back to Nigeria on Friday afternoon.A spokesperson for the Equatorial Guinean government did not immediately reply to request comment. On Nov. 7, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, Equatorial Guinea’s vice president and head of defense and security, said on Twitter that he had authorized the vessel to return to Nigeria.
Nigeria said the vessel had not loaded any oil before the Navy approached it, but said the ship made a false claim of a piracy attack, entered a restricted area without authorization and attempted to load crude oil illegally. It said they had paid a fine to Equatorial Guinea in September, on the promise that they would release the ship and its crew and called its continued detention “shocking maritime injustice.”