Pirates take cargo ship with 43 crew

Pirates in Somalia have hijacked a cargo ship with dozens of foreign crew members on board.

The attackers seized the ship late yesterday in the waters off the war-torn capital, Mogadishu, said a Somalian spokesman for the African Union, which has peacekeepers at the city’s port.

A cargo trader who works at the port said the ship was from South Korea, with 43 foreign crew.

He said it had been carrying sugar from India.

An international watchdog reported this month that pirate attacks worldwide jumped 14% in the first nine months of 2007, with the biggest increases off the poorly policed waters of Somalia and Nigeria.

Reported attacks in Somalia rose rapidly to 26, up from eight a year earlier, the London-based International Maritime Bureau said.

Somalia has had 16 years of violence and anarchy, and is now led by a government battling to establish authority even in the capital. Its coasts are virtually unpoliced.

In May, pirates complaining that their demands had not been met killed a crew member a month after seizing a Taiwan-registered fishing vessel off Somalia’s north-eastern coast.

Pirates even targeted vessels on humanitarian missions such as the MV Rozen, which was hijacked in February soon after it had delivered food aid to north-eastern Somalia.

The ship and its crew were released in April, but the World Food Program has since relied on more expensive air deliveries for Somalia.