An unidentified merchant vessel is feared hijacked in pirate-infested Somali waters in the latest in a surge of attacks on commercial shipping that have sparked dire maritime warnings, an official said Monday. Contact with the ship, which was transporting cargo from Dubai to Somalia, was lost late last week shortly after two Maltese-registered vessels were reported hijacked in the same area off the coast of the lawless country, the official said. âThe ship transporting general cargo from Dubai to Somalia was hijacked off the Somali coast, it has not been in contact since late last week,â said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers' Assistance Programme (SAP). âNormally, if the vessel sank, they would have sent an SOS which would have been received in several ports, but in the case of a hijacking there is no SOS dispatched, meaning it was hijacked,â he told AFP from the Kenyan port of Mombasa. | Y'know, this wouldn't really be that hard a problem to solve. It'd be kind of hard on the ships, of course, but they're insured, if you catch my drift... |
The third hijacking comes as officials in Somalia's fledgling transitional government and the International Maritime Board (IMB) appealed for urgent help from regional navies and coast guards to stop the spate of pirate attacks.