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Italian oil tanker seized with Italian and Indian nationals

09 February 2011 04:37 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Five pirates on Tuesday opened fire on an Italian-owned and flagged giant oil tanker, Savina Caylyn, with rocket-launchers and seized it along with 22 of it crewmembers, which include five nationals from Italy and remaining from India on east the Yemeni Island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean, APA reports quoting allheadlinenews.com website.
The European Union’s Atalanta mission naval forces (Eunavfor), which oversees Somalia and the Gulf of Aden, confirmed about the incident, which happened early on Tuesday and added that the seized vessel was not sailing west towards the Somali coast. According to initial reports, there were no reported injuries in the attack.
Italian navy officials also said that the captain accelerated speed and fired powerful water jets on the skiff to evade seizure, but had to bow down to pirates when they started firing with sub-machine guns and rocket launchers.
An Italian warship named Zeffiro was in the region at the time of incidence and it has already started its journey towards the area where attack happened. However, it will take nearly 48 hours for it to cover the distance, the Italian navy said.
At the time of the incidence, the 266 meter-long vessel was moving from Sudanâ€™s Marsa Bashayer to Malaysiaâ€™s Pasir Gudang, carrying crude oil for the Arcadia commodities trading company. Spokesman Jimmie Adamsson said that they failed to make communication with the vessel since the incident, hence, Eunavfor is totally unaware about the condition of the crewmembers.
However, Adamsson added that Eunavfor was continuing monitoring the situation. "Once a vessel is pirated, it’s typical to lose communication as the pirates head for Somalia and start negotiations with the owners of the ship," Adamsson said.
The hijacking incident happened just two days after Indian navy claimed to have captured 28 suspected Somali pirates from a Thai fishing vessel, which was seized six months ago.