This is The Guardian.

My name is Claire Longric and I'm the Deputy Editor of The Guardian Longread.

To end the year, we're bringing you a selection of our favourite pieces from 2022

with an introduction from the editors. We'll be resuming our normal program in the new year.

Today, I wanted to talk about a piece by Samira Shackle called Seven Stoweys and a hijacked

oil tanker, the strange case of the Navve and Oromida. This piece began with a conversation

between my colleague David Wolfe and one of our regular contributors, Samira Shackle.

After a major incident in the channel in October 2020, in which dangerous stoweys had apparently

threatened a crew of an oil tanker. It was supposed to be some sort of terrorist event massively

reported in the press as an invasion of our shores, you know, the integrity of Britain under threat.

And then a few months later, it was reported that no hijacking had taken place. Nobody had been

arrested or charged or convicted. So they thought this was a bit weird and worth looking into

what actually happened. So the story follows through an amazing bit of reporting by Samira,

who these stoweys were, where they boarded the ship, which was in Nigeria, how difficult and

dangerous it is to stowey on a ship. And then how maritime law and different conventions actually

prevent the ship from being able to put these stoweys off at any port along the way. So they got

caught up in this very strange situation where, you know, the people aren't doing any harm on board,

but they can't actually get rid of them. And they can't put it into port along the way. So it becomes

a major drama. And I think it took Samira really long time to find the original crew and these

stoweys and interview them and to generally tease out what had actually happened. Basically,

the authorities had invented a terrorist attack in order to foil it. It's an absolutely brilliant

piece of reporting with beautiful production. There's a very dramatic use of the radio communications

...