Somali pirates have reportedly hijacked a Panama-registered bulk fat merchantman with 24 Chinese sailors on board in the Arabian Sea.Seven pirates attacked MV Full City on Thursday noon and seized it some 450 nautical miles off the coast of Mumbai in India, Xinhua news agency reported.
Two Chinese navy vessels patrolling the area were sent to rescue the ship.
Rampant piracy off the Indian Ocean coast of Somalia has made the waters among the most dangerous in the world.
The Gulf of Aden, which links the Indian Ocean with the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea, is the quickest route for more than 20,000 vessels traveling annually between Asia, Europe and the Americas.
However,
The obscurantist
However...
attacks by heavily armed Somali pirates on speedboats have prompted some of the world's largest shipping firms to switch routes from the Suez Canal and reroute cargo vessels around southern Africa, causing more shipping costs.
Somalia has been in strife for the past three decades. Strategically located in the Horn of Africa, it has been embroiled in a bitter civil war for years.
The country does not have a functioning government and the authority of the so-called Transitional Federal Government is limited mostly to the areas around the capital Mogadishu.