This time Indian ship with 24 Indians

Somalis seize ship with 24 Indians
- Vessel owned by Mumbai company
Oct. 22 (Agencies): All 24 Indian sailors on board a ship owned by a Mumbai firm were taken hostage by Somali pirates off Seychelles today, a week after two Indians were captured from another vessel.

A Nato spokesperson said in London that MV Al Khaliq, owned by Mumbai shipping firm SNP, had a crew of 26: two Myanmarese and 24 Indians.

“The bulk carrier was hijacked this morning in the Somali Basin,” the spokesperson added.

In Mumbai, Abdulgani Y. Serang, general secretary of the National Union of Seafarers of India, said his association was in touch with SNP to ensure the crew’s safety.

“We are in touch with SNP, which is working on the matter on a war footing. The vessel was on its way to Mombasa (Kenya).”

During the raid, the third by Somali pirates in a week, six men climbed onto the 33,000-tonne ship 320km west of Seychelles and were still on board, Navfor, the EU anti-piracy naval force, said in a statement.

The Panama-flagged Khaliq, managed by London’s Holbud Shipping Management, was being followed by “two attack skiffs (boats)”, Navfor said. It added that the pirates’ mother ship had been taken on board the Khaliq with the help of a crane.

Noel Choong, the head of the International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB’s) piracy reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur, said the pirates were armed with automatic weapons.

A Reuters report quoting Navfor said a second ship, the Italian-flagged MV Jolly Rosso, was raided by another band of Somali pirates off Kenya this morning but it escaped.

The Khaliq hijack comes after the October 15 capture of two Indians — who were among an unspecified number of crew members — in a raid on a vessel in the Indian Ocean.

The IMB’s Choong said today’s incident demonstrated a new trend: pirates targeting vessels far off the coast. A Singapore-flagged bulk container was hijacked last Thursday and a Chinese ship on Monday.

Choong said the Khaliq hijack came just after his piracy reporting centre had sent a warning to all ships sailing off Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania. It said that pirate attacks could increase because of favourable weather after the end of monsoon.

The Nato spokesperson in London also spoke of having issued similar alerts to ships in the area.

“It is recommended that all vessels not making scheduled calls to ports in Somalia, Kenya or Tanzania keep as far from the Somali coast as possible,” he said.

“Vessels should consider maintaining a distance of more than 600 nautical miles from the coastline and when routing north/south consider keeping east of 60E longitude until east of the Seychelles,” the spokesperson said.

Choong said the latest raids brought the number of attacks off the coast of Somalia and the Gulf of Aden to 178 this year, with 36 hijacks.

He said pirates were holding seven ships and 165 crew members. Somali pirates are responsible for over half the 306 ship raids worldwide in the first nine months of this year, the IMB said, surpassing the 293 cases in all of 2008.

I do not understand how in this hi-tech age where Google can pinpoint objects even a few feet apart, the pirates can get away with high seas piracy.
Once again, because US ships are not affected, they are least bothered.US ships run only between the Atlantic. It will take another WTC and repeat of 9/11 on the high seas to wake them up.
Being the most tech-savy the USA should take the initiative with other members of the Security Council to see that this is stopped. Or is the Security country there to just bully the smaller nations.
A task force could be set up in a country near the Somalia coast to keep a watch of the pirate ship.
Some highly armed and equipped ships should roam the area and randomly search ships which may be manned by pirates. If any ship does not allow search by this task force, it should be sunk immediately.
Once a few mother ships of the pirates are sunk, this high-seas robbery would stop.