Pirates hijack two ships off Somali coast

PIRATES seized a British-flagged chemical tanker and a Panamanian-flagged carrier off Somalia’s coast and were holding 45 crew members yesterday, a maritime official has said.

The two hijackings late on Monday showed that pirates are relentless in their pursuit of quick money from ransom and that ship owners need to take extra precaution when sailing in the Horn of Africa, said Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The waters off Somalia are teeming with pirates who have hijacked dozens of ships for multimillion-dollar ransoms in the past two years. An international naval force now patrols the Gulf of Aden, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. Choong said the British-flagged tanker, the St James Park, was the first merchant vessel to have been hijacked in the Gulf of Aden in nearly six months. He said the ship issued a distress message on Monday, seeking help after it was attacked. The distress call was picked up by the Greek rescue and coordination centre in Piraeus, which in turn relayed the message to the International Maritime Bureau and other agencies, he said. The bureau could not establish communication with the vessel but was informed by the ship’s owner early yesterday that the tanker has been hijacked, Choong said. The ship’s managers, London-based Zodiac Maritime Agencies, said yesterday that “no direct contact” has been made with the ship since it was seized.