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Somali pirates hijacked cargo ship in Gulf of Aden: ministry

07 August 2010 04:43 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Somali pirates hijacked a commercial cargo ship with 24 Syrian and Egyptian crew members onboard in the Gulf of Aden off Yemen’s southeastern city of Mukalla, the Yemeni Defense Ministry said on Friday, APA reports quoting news.xinhuanet.com website.

The ship, with the name Syria Star and flagged in Saint Vincent and Grenadines, had sent a distress call saying the Somali pirates opened fire at the crew members on Thursday afternoon, the ministry cited a statement by the central headquarters of the Multinational Naval Forces for Combating the Piracy as saying.

The multinational auti-piracy forces immediately dispatched a helicopter to the scene, the statement said, adding that people in the helicopter found the pirates had already taken control of the ship which was carrying 19,000 tons of sugar and sailing westwards across the Gulf of Aden.

According to the statement, upon the arrival of the multinational anti-piracy forces, the pirates changed the course of the ship, refusing to contact with the forces by radio.

The Gulf of Aden, off the northern coast of Somalia, has the highest risk of piracy in the world. About 25,000 ships pass every year through the canal south of Yemen, between the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea.