Gunmen have hijacked yet another ship in the pirate-infested waters off the coast of lawless Somalia in the latest of a spate of such incidents that have prompted dire maritime warnings, officials said on Thursday.
Pirates seized the Maltese-registered MV Pagania on Wednesday as it sailed northward from South Africa to Europe with cargo of iron ore and have demanded a $700 000 ransom for its release, they said.
”They took over the vessel about 90 nautical miles (167km) off the Somali coast, near the Puntland region,” said Andrew Mwangura of the Seafarers’ Assistance Programme from the Kenyan port of Mombasa.
”They are demanding $700 000 before they release the ship and the crew,” he told Agence France Presse, adding that the number of crew on board, all believed to be Ukrainian, was not immediately known.
In Mogadishu, Somali officials confirmed the incident and said negotiations between the hijackers and the vessel’s owners were currently under way.
Piracy has become epidemic in the unpatrolled waters off the coast of Somalia, where are least 23 hijackings and attempted seizures have been recorded since mid-March, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).
”Ships are advised to keep as far away as possible from the Somali coast,” the IMB said in its latest weekly piracy alert issued on Tuesday before the Pagania was seized.
Somalia has had no functioning central administration for the past 14 years and last week the prime minister of the country’s fledgling and largely powerless transitional government appealed for help in combatting piracy.
On October 13, Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi urged Somalia’s neighbours to send warships and other naval vessels to patrol the 3 700km coastline where the pirates have become increasingly brazen.
The appeal came after two hijacked UN-chartered food aid vessels, one of which had been seized in June, were released but as other ships and crews remain in captivity.
Three Taiwanese fishing vessels and their 48 crew members have been held hostage for two months off the southeastern port of Kismayo, about 500km from Mogadishu, as hijackers demand a ransom of $1,5-million. – AFP
