Authorities stormed a cargo ship last night after its crew were threatened by four stowaway migrants.

The stowaways, who were armed with iron bars, began to demand that the 71,000 tonne container ship navigate closer to the coast so they could swim to shore.

The crew locked themselves in a cabin when the vessel was around ten miles north of Margate, Kent.

Special forces are believed to have stormed the Grande Tema (Picture: Scott Huntley)

Four men were detained under the immigration act after the ship was stormed and then taken to Essex (Picture: Stephen Huntley)

Essex police said the vessel, in the Thames Estuary, was boarded at around 11pm on Friday and taken to the Port of Tilbury in Essex.


It arrived just after 4.20am this morning, according to MarineTraffic.com.

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Four men were detained under the Immigration Act, and no-one on board had been injured.



There were reports that 12 members of the Special Boat Service were brought in to handle the operation.

The ship had set off from Lagos in Nigeria, 4,400 miles away, last Monday.

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The ship appeared to be going in circles for a while yesterday (Picture: Marine Traffic)

A spokesman for the shipping company Grimaldi Lines said staff on the Grand Tema had been threatened.

Paul Kyprianou, a spokesman for Grimaldi Lines, said: ‘We found four stowaways on the vessel.

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‘The vessel was coming from Nigeria and was bound to Tilbury, and those four stowaways were in the cabin, and they managed to escape from the cabin and they started threatening the crew, requesting the master of the vessel navigating very close to the coast.

‘That request was probably because they wanted to jump and reach the British coast.

‘The crew reacted and they locked themselves in the bridge of the vessel and so they are safe, we haven’t had any injuries.

The route which the Grande Tema took in the early hours of this morning (Picture: Marine Traffic)

The Grand Tema set sail from Nigeria 11 days ago

Mr Kyprianou added: ‘At the beginning they weren’t violent. We gave them accommodation and food.

‘They were calm but then when the vessel was closer to shore they changed their behaviour.

‘They were young and they were African. We don’t know the nationality.

‘They probably managed to board the vessel in Lagos but we do not have information regarding the nationality.’

Essex Police said the ship is now secure.

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