Pirates attacked two tugboats within three days of each other in the Malacca Strait, taking a captain and engineer from one of the vessels, news reports said on Tuesday.
The two men were kidnapped on Saturday when the heavily-armed pirates boarded the MV Erna in Indonesian waters off the coast of Belawan in North Sumatra, The Straits Times said.
The crew, composed of Germans, Thais and Filipinos, were said to be in a state of shock after the vessel was attacked twice by pirates in the space of five hours.
The first attack on Thursday targeted a tug registered in Tulavu, a small island in the Pacific which also operates out of Singapore.
None of its crew were abducted, but valuables were taken. The attack on the MV Erna came two days later.
”We’re very concerned about the attacks and have written to the Indonesian maritime authorities to beef up patrols in the area,” Noel Choong, the regional manager of the International Maritime Bureau, told the newspaper.
The heavily-armed pirates, believed to be Indonesians, also robbed the MV Erna crew of their valuables, grabbed maps and other documents. Other than the captain and chief engineer, the rest of the sailors were left unharmed.
Eight pirates in a high-speed fishing boat pulled alongside the MV Erna and started firing, shattering the windows on the bridge, according to the newspaper account.
”Four men boarded the vessel, held the 16-man crew at gun-point, smashed their navigational and communication equipment and sped off” to the coastline with their two prisoners, the report said.
The vessel was ambushed again by another group of pirates off Malaysia’s Port Klang as it attempted to get back to Singapore. The radar was wrecked.
Kasel Salvage, owner of the boat, is towing it to Singapore, but declined to comment on any ransom demands.
Five other merchant vessels have been hit by pirates in the Malacca Strait, one the world’s busiest waterways, in the last five months.
Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore have started year-round naval patrols in the narrow waterway where 38 vessels fell prey to pirates last year. – Sapa-DPA