Somali pirates seized a small Dutch vessel on Thursday with eight crew members on board, in the latest hijacking in the world’s most dangerous waterways, a regional maritime group said. ”It happened in the Gulf of Aden two hours ago. That’s all I have at the moment,” Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers Assistance Programme, told Reuters.
Somali pirate activity has been frenetic in recent weeks, despite an unprecedented international naval deployment in the area intended to deter gangs marauding in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden waters off their coast.
Pirates freed a UAE-owned cargo ship freed on Wednesday and captured an Antigua and Barbuda-flagged vessel the day before.
They are holding about 18 ships with about 250 hostages, according to local piracy monitoring groups. – Reuters