Somali pirates hijack Thai fishing boat

The boat was seized Tuesday in the Gulf of Aden, said Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur. Also Tuesday, an Iranian bulk cargo carrier with 25 crew members was seized in the area, according to earlier reports.

Both vessels were heading to the Middle East when they were hijacked, he said.

The Thai boat, which was flying a Kiribati flag but operated out of Thailand, made a distress call late Monday as it was chased by pirates in two speedboats but the phone line got cut off midway, he said.

The bulk carrier was flying a Hong Kong flag but operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines.

“There is no firm deterrent, that’s why the pirate attacks are continuing. The criminal activities are flourishing because the risks are low and the rewards are extremely high,” Choong said.

Tuesday’s incidents bring the number of attacks in Somali waters this year to 95, with 39 ships hijacked.

Thai government spokesman Nattawut Sai-gua said he had not been informed of the development. He said officials are checking with their diplomatic missions in the region.

Choong said 17 vessels remain in the hands of pirates along with more than 300 crew, including a Ukrainian ship loaded with arms and a Saudi Arabian supertanker carrying $100 million in crude.

Despite increased patrols by a multi-coalition naval force, attacks have continued unabated off Somalia, which is caught up in an Islamic insurgency and has had no functioning government since 1991.

A major Norwegian shipping group Odfjell SE on Tuesday ordered its more than 90 tankers to sail around Africa rather than use the Suez Canal after the seizure of the Saudi tanker MV Sirius Star on Saturday.

“We will no longer expose our crew to the risk of being hijacked and held for ransom by pirates in the Gulf of Aden,” said Terje Storeng, Odfjell’s president and chief executive. “Unless we are explicitly committed by existing contracts to sail through this area, as from today we will reroute our ships around Cape of Good Hope.”

The Gulf of Aden, off Somalia, connects to the Red Sea, which in turn is linked to the Mediterranean by the Suez Canal. The route is thousands of miles (kilometres) and many days shorter than going around the Cape of Good Hope off the southern tip of Africa.

“This will incur significant extra cost, but we expect our customers’ support and contribution,” Storeng said.

Saudi Arabia, which is the world’s leading oil producer, has condemned the hijacking and said it will join the international fight against piracy. Somali officials vowed to try to rescue the supertanker, by force if necessary.

Pirates have seized dozens of ships off Somalia’s coast in the last year, generally releasing them after ransoms were paid. NATO has three warships in the Gulf of Aden and the US Navy’s 5th Fleet has ships in the region. But the MV Sirius Star was seized more than 450 nautical miles (833 kilometers) southeast of Mombasa, Kenya - far from NATO and US patrols.

The 5th Fleet spokeswoman could not be immediately reached for comment.

The Sirius Star was anchored Tuesday close to Harardhere, the main pirates’ den on the Somali coast, with a full load of 2 million barrels of oil and 25 crew members.

“As usual, I woke up at 3 a.m. and headed for the sea to fish, but I saw a very, very large ship anchored less than three miles off the shore,” Abdinur Haji, a fisherman in Harardhere, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

“I have been fishing here for three decades, but I have never seen a ship as big as this one,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “There are dozens of spectators on shore trying to catch a glimpse of the large ship.”

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