LAGOS, Nigeria —Nigerian sailors rescued a hijacked oil tanker in a dramatic night-time rescue in which they killed one pirate, the Nigerian navy announced as it escorted the ship into Lagos harbor Monday.

The Panama-flagged Maximus, owned by a company in the United Arab Emirates and on lease to a South Korean shipping company, steamed in with four captured hijackers from Nigeria and Ghana and the crew of 18 from India, Pakistan, China, South Korea, Sudan and Ghana, said Rear Admiral Henry Babalola.

Rescued crew of the hijacked Maximus vessel stand for the media in Lagos, Nigeria, on Monday. The ship has been hijacked three times in five years in the Gulf of Guinea. The Nigerian navy stormed the ship, which bandits wanted for its diesel fuel. The Associated Press

He said the navy is still searching for two crew taken hostage by two hijackers who escaped in a pirate vessel. The Indian defense attaché, Capt. Gautam Marwaha, said one hostage is Indian and the other is believed to be Pakistani. He said they have received no ransom demand.

The bandits were after the ship’s 4,700 tons of diesel fuel when they seized it Feb. 11 off the coast of Ivory Coast, the navy said. The ship was rescued Saturday night 310 miles southwest of Lagos.

It’s the third time in five years that the ship has been hijacked in the Gulf of Guinea area, according to two maritime ship-tracking websites. The last time, in 2014, one crew member and two pirates were killed and six captured after a shootout with the Nigerian navy just outside anchorage in Lagos, Nigeria’s Atlantic Ocean-side commercial center.

Babalola, who commanded Saturday’s rescue, described a tense standoff as the pirates denied the ship was the Maximus, as they had hand-painted over the name in white. “We tried diplomacy, but they refused to surrender,” Babalola said. Sailors stormed the ship when one pirate opened fire, taking special care because the vessel is highly flammable, he said.

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