14 ships, 260 crew held by Somali pirates

By The Associated Press The Associated Press – 33 mins ago

The International Maritime Bureau says 260 crew on 14 hijacked ships are being held off the coast of Somalia, including the U.S.-flagged ship seized Wednesday, the Maersk Alabama and its crew of 20 U.S. nationals.

The other ships include:

• Turkish tanker Karagol, seized in November carrying 4,500 tons of chemicals and 14 Turkish personnel.

• Bulk carrier African Sanderling and its 21 Filipino crewmen, seized in October.

Organizations tracking global piracy trends said Somalia recorded the highest number of attacks in recent years in 2008. The most prominent of the hijackings were:

• Saudi supertanker Sirius Star, which was hijacked in November and released in January. The pirates at the time reportedly received $3 million to release the tanker even though they initially had asked for $25 million. However, five of the Somali pirates drowned with their share of the ransom money after their small boat capsized during a storm.

• Ukrainian freighter MV Faina, which was hijacked in September with 20 crew members. It was released in February after pirates holding the ship said they received $3.2 million in ransom. The ransom was paid after protracted negotiations, which saw even Ukrainian relatives of the crew members fundraise among themselves at one point because they felt their government was not doing enough.

I think, that all pirates should just be blown out the water.

Japanese

LoongLee wrote:Indeed good news PhilR,,,, now they need to string the one captured up to the mainmast and sail into Mogadishu harbor.

The international effort to stop piracy off Somalia has not worked and the effort clearly needs to be stepped up into a higher gear.

The response so far has been twofold: first, to assemble naval forces to try to stop the pirates on the high seas; second, to encourage a political settlement within the fractured state of Somalia to enable law and order to be established.

The naval forces are growing all the time. There is already a small flotilla of warships in the region from the US, UK, Canada, France, Turkey, Germany, Russia and India, among others.

This shows how the world's trading powers regard the piracy as a joint threat.

There has been some success. The warships have established a safe shipping lane and escort food aid ships into Somalia. The Royal Navy recently shot and killed two pirates and captured others. The French staged a daring capture of pirates who had taken over a yacht. The Indian navy has thwarted two attempted hijacks, though the pirates in both cases got away. (Update 19 November: The Indian Navy reports that it has sunk a pirate ship which refused to stop. Further update 26 November: it is now reported that the 'pirate' ship was in fact a Thai fishing boat.) to read the rest click on BBC link...


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7735144.stm