VP ASPHALT 2

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Crew member shot by pirates

A Vietnamese sailor of the "VP Asphalt 2" died at a hospital in Singapore on Dec 7, 2014, after being shot by a group of pirates who hijacked the tanker off the island nation earlier the same day. Tran Duc Dat was one of the 16 crewmembers of the ship. The hijacking occurred at 4:30 a.m. about 60 nautical miles off Singapore. The tanker was carrying 2,300 tons of liquid asphalt from Singapore to the southern province of Dong Nai. After tying the crewmembers up, the pirates searched their rooms and the cargo hold for an hour. They left the ship at 5:30 a.m. After the hijackers left, several crewmembers found Dat lying in a coma in his room, with a bloody gunshot wound to his head. The ship reported the case to the Vietnam MRCC, which provided instructions on giving first aid to him. The agency asked the Singaporean SAR forces to send a helicopter to the scene to take the victim ashore for emergency treatment. The agency also notified the ship’s owner of the incident and asked it to coordinate with Singaporean authorities to handle the case. At 9:40 a.m., the victim was taken to Singapore on a helicopter under the care of Singaporean doctors. He was then brought to a hospital but died at noon the same day due to his wound. Meanwhile, the "VP Asphalt 2" returned to Singapore to report to local authorities about the attack. The location where the ship was attacked was near the waters where another Vietnamese cargo ship, the "Sunrise 689", owned by the Hai Phong Fishery Shipbuilding Joint Stock Company, was attacked on Oct 2 while carrying 5,226 tons of oil from Singapore’s Horizon Port to Cua Viet Port in the northern Vietnamese city of Quang Tri.