Somali Pirates Seize Four Ships on Day UN Passes Plan

Via Bloomberg -

Somali pirates seized four ships in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia yesterday -- the same day the United Nations Security Council adopted a motion to allow land and air operations against pirates.

The pirates boarded the Chinese fishing boat, the Zhenhua 4, with its crew of 30 late yesterday, Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur, said by phone from the city today. The ship’s captain contacted the coalition naval forces who dispatched two helicopters, he said.

“One of the helicopters fired at the nine pirates, who then fled back to their speedboats,” Choong said. The crew had locked themselves in their cabins and no one was injured, he added.

Somali pirates have attacked about 120 ships in the region this year, seizing at least 40 vessels and collecting more than $120 million in ransoms. The Security Council vote follows the Dec. 8 decision of the European Union to approve deployment of a naval force off Somalia, the 27-nation organization’s first such mission. The force would try to suppress piracy in an area more than three times the size of France.

Earlier yesterday, pirates seized a Turkish cargo ship, a Malaysian tug used as an oil industry support ship, and a private yacht. The tug, with 11 crew members, was returning to Malaysia from the Middle East when it was boarded by pirates, Choong said.

The cargo vessel, with a crew of 8 Ukrainians and three Turks, was attacked by pirates armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, who arrived in two speedboats and boarded the vessel, Choong said. The Bosphorus Prodigy, an Antigua-based vessel, is owned by Turkey’s Isko Marine Shipping Co., Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement on its Web site, adding that it got the information from its embassy in Kenya.

China said today it may deploy a naval force off the Horn of Africa to combat rising piracy.

“China is seriously considering sending naval ships to the Gulf of Aden and waters off the Somali coast for escorting operations in the future,” the state-run Xinhua news agency said, citing Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei.