LOST SWAZI SHIP FOUND?

MBABANE –  A ship belonging to the Swazi Government, which got lost under mysterious circumstances in the 1990s, is possibly sailing at sea, off the coast of Liberia in West Africa.

The Times SUNDAY can reveal that the ship was recently filmed by a German photographer sailing off the coast of Liberia.
It still bears the name of the country, ‘Swaziland’.

This is not to suggest that Liberia, as a country, is responsible for the missing Swazi government property.
Crime is rife at sea as sea robbers, known as pirates, usually hijack ships and rob passengers – and could even change the manufacturing dates and other features.
It has been established that the Swaziland cargo ship which was photographed sailing in the Atlantic Ocean has been decommissioned and further classified as ‘lost or scrapped’.
Decommissioning a ship means retiring it with honour or placing it out of active service while commissioning is the opposite.

The classification of this particular ship as having been scrapped or lost qualifies the conviction that it could be the one the Swazi government was looking for.
The ship bearing the name of the country should not be mistaken for the ones that used to transport the country’s iron ore from the Mozambican port to the overseas market.
Sihle Dlamini, one of the directors of the defunct Salgaocar Swaziland, said vessels that transported the mineral to the overseas markets did not bear the name of the country.
He said they used different ships that belonged to various owners. 

Meanwhile, SwaziMar, as the lost ship was called, is registered as MO: 9152284 and its call sign number is A8VP2. 
It now flies the flag of Liberia but bears the name ‘Swaziland’.
It is 300 metres wide. Its whereabouts have been tracked by Vesseltracker, a Germany company that is a global provider of automatic identification systems (AIS), vessel movements and maritine information services. 
Another company that tracked the ship sailing in the far-flung oceans is MarineTraffic, a global ship tracking company based in Canada and Mexico.

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