Reports that a missing merchant ship had turned up in the Atlantic Ocean off the Cape Verde islands have proven untrue, Russia’s RIA agency quoted Moscow’s envoy to the country as saying on Friday.
The disappearance of the Arctic Sea, and its 15-member Russian crew, has baffled authorities in Europe and North Africa. Moscow has sent warships to find it.
Portugal’s Lusa news agency said the 4,000-tonne freighter was 400 nautical miles off the West African archipelago, while France said it had intelligence of a sighting that could match the Arctic Sea.
“There was information that a cargo ship similar to the one being searched for was spotted 400 nautical miles north of the island of Santo Antao,” RIA quoted Russian Ambassador to Cape Verde Alexander Karpushin as saying.
“However, this information did not prove to be true,” he said, citing a meeting with the head of Cape Verde’s armed forces.
Earlier, Lusa quoted the Cape Verde Director-General of Defense Pedro Reis as saying the ship was in international waters north of Sao Vicente, a Cape Verdean island close to Santo Antao.
A French naval spokesman said that French intelligence had information suggesting a ship matching the description of the Arctic Sea was located north of Cape Verde. The information had been passed to Russia and Malta.
“Earlier today, French intelligence found that there was a ship in the south Atlantic, at the [latitude] of Brazil, that could match the description of the Arctic Sea,” Captain Jerome Baroe said in Paris.
Indications it was north of Cape Verde would have corroborated reports that it had been heading into the Atlantic.
However, Major Antonio Monteiro, commander of the naval squadron of Cape Verde’s coast guard, said he could not confirm the information the freighter had passed north of Cape Verde.
The Maltese-registered vessel, carrying a US$1.3-million cargo of timber, was to have docked on Aug. 4 in the Algerian port of Bejaia. It never arrived and was believed to have last made contact from a position off the French coast.
Concerns about the safety of the Russian crew were raised after the Malta Maritime Authority said it had received reports the ship had been boarded by men in masks posing as anti-drugs police in Swedish waters on July 24.
But earlier on Friday, the European Commission expressed doubt that the ship had fallen prey to pirates as its operator had suggested.
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