The tanker Tagor, which departed from the Russian port of Murmansk and was allegedly bound for Limbe, Cameroon, was halted on May 31 approximately 400 nautical miles west of Brittany. Suspected of operating under a fraudulent Cameroonian flag, the vessel was diverted toward France following a nationality verification conducted at sea under the framework of Article 110 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Escorted by the French Navy, the ship is now at the center of a diplomatic and judicial dispute regarding the integrity of maritime registrations and the enforcement of international shipping regulations.
Yaoundé slams illegal exploitation of national maritime symbols
In a firm address broadcast on national radio, the Cameroonian Minister of Transport, Jean Ernest Masséna Ngalle Bibehe, clarified that the Tagor has no place in the country’s official maritime records. He stated that the vessel “does not appear in any of the official registers of vessels authorized to fly the Cameroonian flag.” The minister expressed a rigorous condemnation of what he termed the “fraudulent and abusive use of the attributes of Cameroonian nationality.”
Furthermore, Jean Ernest Masséna Ngalle Bibehe urged the global community to implement
