India has asked for help from the Benin and Nigerian navies to find the Marine Express, which has 22 Indian crew members on board and was last heard from off the coast of Benin on Thursday. Dakar/Mumbai: A ship carrying 22 Indian crew and 13,500 tons of gasoline went missing in the piracy-plagued waters off the Benin coast in the Gulf of Guinea near West Africa, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Sunday. Earlier, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had tweeted, “A merchant vessel Marine Express [oil tanker], owned by the Mumbai-based Anglo-Eastern shipping company with 22 Indian nationals on board, is presumably missing off the coast of Benin in the Gulf of Guinea.”

Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj also said on Twitter that 22 Indian nationals were onboard. Later, at 2.36 am on February 1, satellite tracking found the ship missing from anchorage.The vessel, carrying 13,500 tonnes of gasoline, may have been hijacked for ransom or attacked by pirates for the gas. One of the sailors on board 'MT Marine Express' is Sree Unni (25), son of Perilavallap Ashokan of Udma in Kasargod, said his relatives.Mumbai-based Anglo Eastern Ship Management, which owns the vessel, informed them it lost contact with Marine Express on January 31. Feb. 4 (UPI) -- An oil tanker carrying 22 Indian crew members and thousands of tons of gas was reported missing off the coast of West Africa Sunday, India's foreign ministry said.
An Anglo-Eastern Group oil tanker with 22 Indian crew members on board is reported missing off the coast of Benin. The area is well known for piracy.