Liberia’s country’s Maritime Commissioner says at least seven people are missing after a cargo ship that had been barred from sailing sank off the coast of.
The Liberian-registered Niko Ivanka left the capital Monrovia on Saturday morning for a port in the country’s south, despite being under a Liberia Maritime Authority detention order.
Maritime Commissioner Eugene Nagbe told a news conference said the vessel sent out a distress signal that afternoon notifying the coast guard that it had taken on water and that by the time authorities arrived, it had already partially sunk.
Nagbe said an investigation has been commissioned into how a vessel that was detained for failure to meet rudimentary safety requirements managed to get on the sea with passengers and cargo.
The vessel’s owner, a Chinese national, was arrested on Sunday afternoon and is now in police custody, Nagbe told Reuters.
The search continued on Sunday afternoon as teams from Liberia’s coast guard scoped nearby shores and riverbanks in collaboration with a ship from anti-whaling organization Sea Shepherd, Nagbe said.
The ship’s manifest showed 18 people on board at the time of departure but authorities suspect that more could have been on board, given that the vessel was not licensed to carry passengers in the first place, Tonpoe said.
Among those listed on the manifest was a Swedish captain, a Chinese crew member, and nine members of West Africa’s regional school examinations body.
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