A Spanish navy ship is crusing at full velocity in the direction of a Maltese-flagged industrial vessel which will have been hijacked by pirates off Somalia, the European Union’s Somali counter piracy pressure mentioned on Friday.
If confirmed, it could be the primary profitable hijacking involving Somali pirates since 2017 when a crackdown by worldwide navies stopped a rash of seizures within the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
EUNAVFOR’s joint operations centre in Spain mentioned it acquired an alert on Thursday in regards to the “alleged pirate-hijacked vessel” Ruen, which was roughly 500 nautical miles east of Socotra Island, off Somalia.
In Somalia’s breakaway Puntland area, a member of a gaggle that helped organise raids on ships prior to now instructed Reuters he had heard pirates had managed to grab a vessel.
“Six of my pirate pals managed to seize a ship and they’re going to convey it to the coast of the japanese area of Puntland,” Mukhtar Mohamud mentioned by telephone from the coastal metropolis of Qandala.
He didn’t title the vessel and Puntland’s maritime authorities had no quick remark.
EUNAVFOR mentioned the Spanish warship Victoria had been despatched to the scene “in an effort to collect extra data and consider additional actions”.
“EUNAVFOR stays vigilant to this and different current piracy-related occasions within the space of operations, the northwest Indian Ocean and the Crimson Sea.”
The pressure added that it was coordinating with the broader worldwide naval Mixed Maritime Pressure.
British maritime safety firm Ambrey mentioned it believed the Ruen had been hijacked by pirates.
Earlier on Friday, Britain’s maritime physique UKMTO mentioned it had acquired a report from a ship’s safety officer who believed the crew not had management of a vessel which was presently headed in the direction of Somalia.
The Ruen is managed by Bulgaria’s Navigation Maritime Bulgare, in accordance with knowledge on public delivery database Equasis.
The vessel was final seen underneath method within the open sea crusing in the direction of Somalia at 1426 GMT, in accordance with ship monitoring knowledge on LSEG.
(Reuters – Reporting by Jonathan Saul, extra reporting by Abdiqani Hassan in Garowe and George Obulutsa, Modifying by William Maclean, Christina Fincher, Nick Macfie and Andrew Heavens)
