Somali pirates hijack British-owned ship
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Pirates seized a British-owned ship on Monday after taking three vessels over the weekend, marking a jump in the number of hijackings in the perilous waters off Somalia this year.
In the first three months of 2009, only eight ships had been hijacked in the busy Gulf of Aden linking Europe to Asia and the eastern Indian Ocean off the Somali coast, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).
Last year, heavily armed gangs from the lawless Horn of Africa nation hijacked dozens of vessels, taking hundreds of sailors hostage and earning millions of dollars in ransoms.
Foreign navies rushed warships to the area and reduced the number of successful attacks. But there are still near-daily attempts and the pirates have begun hunting further afield near the Seychelles archipelago.
"A 32,000-tonne bulker was seized early this morning. It is UK-owned but operated by Italians. The crew is mixed but we are not sure of their nationalities," said Andrew Mwangura of the Mombasa-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme.
The British vessel was named as the Malaspina Castle. Nikolai Apostolov, head of Bulgaria's Maritime Administration Agency said 16 Bulgarians were on board.
"I hear they have also captured a Taiwanese fishing vessel near the Seychelles," he told Reuters.
Over the weekend, pirates seized a French yacht, a Yemeni tug and the Hansa Stavanger, a 20,000-tonne German container vessel, despite the presence of foreign warships that have been sent to the region to deter the pirates. Continued...
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