[Mhiz Rebecca]

A tanker vessel with 19 crew members on board,
most of them Georgians, has gone missing in pirate-
plagued waters off Gabon in West Africa and no
word has been heard from it for a week, the ship’s
managers and the crew agency said on Wednesday.
Communication was lost with the Panama-
registered Pantelena at about 2 a.m. local time on
Aug. 14, at which time it was about 17 miles from
the port of Libreville, in Gabon, Athens-based Lotus
Shipping said in a statement.
The head of the Georgian crew agency Ialkani,
Anzhela Oganesyan, said two Russian nationals and
17 Georgians were aboard the tanker. She said she
had no news so far about the vessel’s fate.