Monday, February 04, 2008
All crew members on the Svitzer Korsakov, a Russian-built ship, were believed to be unharmed, said Pat Adamson, a London-based spokesman for the Danish ship owner, Svitzer. He said the ship was at anchor in Somali waters on Monday, three days after it was hijacked off Somalia's coast.
Adamson said his company was in contact with the pirates and crew, and it appeared the crew was well.
"The morale is good. They're getting sleep, they're getting food. That's where we are at the moment," he said.
He declined to give any details on the negotiations with the pirates, citing concerns for the safety of the crew. Adamson said he did not know how many pirates were aboard the ship, or what weapons they were carrying. "I would assume they're armed," he said.
Adamson said the 35-meter-long (115-foot) ship was newly built in St. Petersburg, Russia, and was on its way to Sakhalin Island between Japan and Russia.
An official in Puntland, a semiautonomous region of northeast Somalia, said authorities were aware of the hijacking, though they had believed the ship was Russian.
"Now the ship is in the waters of the coastal town of Eyl," said Abdirahman Mohamed Bangah, Puntland's information minister. "We understand that there are Russians and Britons onboard," Bangah told The Associated Press by phone. "Puntland urges the U.S. Navy and western marine forces along the Indian Ocean and Red Sea to rescue the hijacked Russian ship."
"Puntland is not in position to safeguard (its) long coastline," he added. Puntland has few security personnel and no coast guard.
The U.S. Navy has led international patrols to try to combat piracy in the region. In one incident last year, the guided missile destroyer USS Porter opened fire to destroy pirate skiffs tied to a tanker.
Piracy is increasingly common along Somalia's 3,025-kilometer (1,880-mile) coast, which is the longest in Africa and near key shipping routes connecting the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean. Wracked by more than a decade of violence and anarchy, Somalia does not have its own navy and the transitional government formed in 2004 with U.N. help has struggled to assert control.
The International Maritime Bureau, which tracks piracy, said in its annual report released earlier this year that global pirate attacks rose by 10 percent in 2007, marking the first increase in three years as sea robbers made a strong comeback, particularly off Somalia.
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Associated Press Writer Karl Ritter in Stockholm, Sweden, contributed to this report.
Source: AP, Feb 04, 2008