Wednesday, February 09, 2011
The attack took place 895 miles from the Somali coast.
Pottengal Mukundan, director of the London-based International Maritime Bureau, said other vessels had been hijacked further from Somalia, with the furthest attacks up to 1,500 nautical miles from its coast.
But he went on: “What is disturbing is that this attack takes place where the traffic from the Arabian Gulf flows down.”
Mr Angelo said a much greater commitment by governments was needed to tackle piracy in the Indian Ocean.
“If piracy in the Indian Ocean is left unabated, it will strangle these crucial shipping lanes with the potential to severely disrupt oil flows to the US and to the rest of the world,” he said.
The Irene SL’s seizure came amid a wave of attacks by Somali pirates, including the hijacking on Tuesday of the Savina Caylyn, an Italian-owned oil product tanker, 500 nautical miles off the Indian coast.
There have been 44 pirate attacks on vessels off Somalia so far this year, leading to eight hijackings, according to the IMB. Somali pirates currently hold 32 vessels and 725 crew.
Athens-based Enesel, which manages the Irene SL on behalf of Greece’s Lemos family, said armed men in skiffs had attacked the ship at 07.32 GMT. There were seven Greeks, 17 Filipinos and a Georgian on board.
“For the moment there is no communication with the vessel,” it said.
In contrast to previous years, when most successful hijackings took place in the Gulf of Aden between Somalia and Yemen, all this year’s hijackings had taken place in the Indian Ocean east of Somalia, Mr Mukundan said. Because of its size, the area is far harder than the Gulf of Aden for international naval anti-piracy operations to patrol.
Somali pirates’ range had increased this year, Mr Mukundan said, because they were using hijacked ocean-going commercial ships, often with their original crews on board, as bases for attacks.
Source: Financial Times