Wednesday, April 08, 2009
The crew of 20 Americans were in control of the ship and were trying to negotiate their captain's release while they waited for a U.S. warship to arrive, second mate Ken Quinn told CNN.
Citing an unnamed senior defence official, CNN reported that the U.S. Navy destroyer Bainbridge had arrived on the scene. CNN also said a U.S. Navy aircraft made visual contact with the hijackers and was providing the Bainbridge with an accurate reading of what was going on in the area.
Asked about the report, a U.S. defence official in Washington said: "We have air assets in the area. It's 2:30 in the morning over there. So exactly what we're seeing, I don't know."
The ship's operator, Maersk Line, confirmed that the U.S. crew had regained control of the 17,000-tonne Maersk Alabama after the pirates left the ship with one hostage.
The seizure was the latest in an escalation in pirate attacks off the lawless Horn of Africa country of Somalia.
A spokesman for the company said no injuries had been reported for the rest of the crew left aboard.
"We are just trying to offer them whatever we can, food, but it is not working too good," Quinn told CNN of efforts to secure the freedom of the captain. He said the four pirates were holding the captain hostage on the ship's lifeboat.
Maritime officials said the Maersk Alabama was carrying food aid for Somalia and Uganda from Djibouti to Mombasa, a Kenyan port, when it was seized far out in the Indian Ocean.
"We can confirm that our crew has control of the ship. The pirates have departed the ship and they have taken one crew member with them as a hostage," the Maersk Line spokesman said, but could not confirm whether the hostage was the captain.
The ship seizure, about 300 miles (500 km) off Somalia, was the first time Somali pirates have seized U.S. citizens.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was very worried by the hijacking and called for world action to end the "scourge" of piracy.
"We are deeply concerned and we are following it very closely," Clinton told reporters in Washington.
"Specifically, we are now focussed on this particular act of piracy and the seizure of the ship that carries 21 American citizens. More generally, we think the world must come together to end the scourge of piracy."
CREW TIE UP PIRATE
Second mate Quinn said the four pirates sank their own boat when they boarded the container ship. However, the captain talked them into getting off the freighter and into the ship's lifeboat with him.
The crew then overpowered one of the pirates and sought to exchange him for the captain, Quinn told CNN.
"We kept him for 12 hours. We tied him up," Quinn said. The crew released their captive to the other pirates, but the exchange did not work and the captain was still being held by the pirates on the lifeboat, he told CNN.
"They are not aboard. We are controlling" the ship, he said.
Maersk Line president and chief executive John Reinhart told reporters he had received a cell phone call from the crew at about 11 a.m. EDT (4:00 p.m. British time) saying they were all safe.
He said company protocol advised the U.S. sailors not to attempt to retake the ship once hijackers were on board.
"Once boarded, the crew has safe rooms and they are not to take on active engagement because they have no weapons. It would be a risk to their lives," Reinhart said.
Maersk Line is a Norfolk, Virginia-based subsidiary of Denmark's A.P. Moller-Maersk, the world's biggest container shipper.
Among the ship's cargo were 400 containers of food aid, including 232 containers belonging to the U.N.'s World Food Program that were destined for Somalia and Uganda.
The seizure was the latest in a wave of pirate attacks. Gunmen from Somalia seized a British-owned ship on Monday after hijacking another three vessels over the weekend.
In the first three months of 2009 just eight ships were hijacked in the strategic Gulf of Aden, which links Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea to Europe via the Suez Canal.
Last year, heavily armed Somali pirates hijacked dozens of vessels, took hundreds of sailors hostage -- often for weeks -- and extracted millions of dollars in ransoms.
Foreign navies sent warships to the area in response and reduced the number of successful attacks.
The Seafarers International Union, which has 12 members aboard, said the Maersk Alabama was enrolled in the U.S. Maritime Security Program (MSP), a fleet of militarily useful, privately owned vessels.
Source: Reuters, April 8, 2009