Sun Ebi, captain of a boat travelling the Yenagoa to Brass route, was murdered in an attack by armed men suspected to be sea pirates, Bayelsa eyewitness reported Sahara Reporters.
Reacting to the attack, the chairman of Brass chapter of the Maritime Workers' Union, Mr Magnus Angel, called the attack that led to the death of the boat captain as "shocking."
He said the passenger boat was attacked alast Tuesday at about 6 p.m. “The boat was travelling from Yenagoa to Brass when the armed pirates attacked it.
``And in the confusion that ensued, passengers jumped into the water, while the pirates ransacked their belongings.
"After the pirates left, the passengers resurfaced to continue their trip when they discovered that the captain was missing," Angel stated.
Boat union members and others entered the river to search for the body.
Barely a day after the incident, another group of sea pirates attacked another boat along the Ogbolomabiri area of Nembe waterways but no casualty was recorded.
Angel called on the state government to save the indigenes of the coastal communities of the state from the frequent sea pirates' attack.
Bayelsa Police spokesman, Mr Fidelis Odunna, collaborated the eye witness account adding that the captain's corpse was found floating on the river few days after the incident.
"Bayelsa government should take proactive ways of ensuring the safety of lives our people who ply the waterways of the state on daily basis”, said the union leader.
Odunna said that the command had taken delivery of over 40 gun boats procured by the state government to assist in a proposed campaign against sea piracy in the state
