Kuala Lumpur/London, October 22
At least 24 Indian sailors were taken hostage by Somali pirates who hijacked a Panamanian-flagged bulk carrier near Seychelles today, only a week after a vessel with two Indians among the crew was seized by the sea brigands.

The ‘MV Al Khaliq’ was Indian-managed and had a sizeable number of Indian crew aboard, Noel Choong, the head of the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Centre, said in Kuala Lumpur.

A NATO spokesman in London said, “There were 26 crew on board — 24 Indians and two Burmese. The 33,000 DWT bulk carrier was hijacked this morning in the Somali Basin. This is the third vessel hijacked by Somali pirates during the last one week.”

The EU’s anti-piracy naval force has said in a statement that the incident took place 180 nautical miles west of Seychelles. They said six pirates are on board the ship, which is being followed by “two attack skiffs (boats)”.

The mother ship of the pirates has been taken on board with the help of a crane, it said.
Two Indians were among an unspecified number of crew on board a ship, ‘MV Kota Wajar’, which was hijacked by Somali pirates on October 15 in the Indian Ocean.

Choong said today's hijacking came just after the Piracy Reporting Centre had sent a warning to all ships transiting east and south of Somalia, off Kenya and off Tanzania. The centre has warned that attacks were increasing off the coast of Somalia, especially with the end of the southwest monsoon and favourable weather conditions prevailing now. The warning noted that Somali pirates were now “very actively” attacking vessels very far off the coast of Somalia.

The centre urged all ships transiting these areas to maintain a strict anti-piracy watch, 24-hour radar watch and lookout through the passage. It also asked ships sailing more than 600 nautical miles to remain vigilant at all times as pirates were now moving further out to sea to attack merchant vessels.

It advised vessels to take evasive measures to prevent boarding and asked them to request for assistance. “All attacks and suspicious sightings including possible pirate mother vessel towing skiffs should be reported,” it read.

Somalia’s dreaded pirates were responsible for over half of the 306 attacks against ships worldwide in the first nine months of this year. The number of attacks globally in the nine-month period surpassed the total of 293 cases recorded in all of 2008, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said.

Pirates from the war-torn country of Somalia have been blamed for the spike in the number of cases reported in the Gulf of Aden, from 51 in the January-September period of 2008 to 100 this year. In the Somali coast, 47 incidents were reported this year against 12 last year.

The Somali pirates have also extended their reach to the southern region of the Red Sea, the East Coast of Oman and the Babel Mandab Straits.

In total, they were responsible for 168 attacks in the first three quarters of this year. They have succeeded in hijacking 32 vessels and holding 533 crew hostage. As of September 30, the IMB said four vessels with over 80 crew were still being held pending negotiation. — PTI