REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JOHANNESBURG- A French-owned oil tanker missing off Ivory Coast with 17 sailors on board likely has been hijacked, an official with an international piracy watchdog said Monday, in what may be the latest attack by criminal gangs targeting the ships to steal their valuable cargo. Meanwhile, a sailor died in a similar attack Monday near Nigeria's largest city.

Details remained scarce Monday about the fate of the ship, flagged in Luxembourg. The ship had been reported missing Sunday and officials believe it fell victim to the same pirates operating throughout the Gulf of Guinea, said Noel Choong, a spokesman for the International Maritime Bureau in Malaysia.

SEA Tankers, a shipping firm based in Merignac, France, issued a statement Monday afternoon identifying the missing ship as the M/T Gascogne. "The company (is) in contact with the relevant authorities in the region with the objective of re-establishing communication with the vessel's crew," the company said. "The safety of the crew and vessel remain the overriding priority."

A company spokeswoman declined to offer any details about the identities of the kidnapped sailors. Aboubacar Ouattara, a spokesman at the Autonomous Port of Abidjan, said officials had been in an emergency meeting concerning what he described as a "hijacking." However, he declined to offer any specific details.

The presumed attack Sunday comes amid a series of escalating attacks in the Gulf of Guinea, which follows the continent's southward curve from Liberia to Gabon. On Monday, pirates attacked another oil tanker anchored off Nigeria's largest city, Lagos, shooting one of the crew members, Choong said. The sailor died while in transit to a local hospital, the maritime bureau later said, though offering no other details.

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