(Corrects the nationalities of the ship’s crew members after the second bullet point of this July 23 story, removing an inaccurate reference to Germans and Filipinos) GAROWE, Somalia, July 23 (Reuters) – A merchant ship hijacked in Yemeni waters in the Gulf of Aden last week is now being held by Somali pirates, two residents […]
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Merchant ship hijacked off Yemen now held by Somali pirates, residents say
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(Corrects the nationalities of the ship’s crew members after the second bullet point of this July 23 story, removing an inaccurate reference to Germans and Filipinos)
GAROWE, Somalia, July 23 (Reuters) – A merchant ship hijacked in Yemeni waters in the Gulf of Aden last week is now being held by Somali pirates, two residents of Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region told Reuters on Thursday.
• The ship, the MT Asana, is a Tanzanian-flagged fuel and chemical tanker.
• There were at least 19 crew members on board, including 11 Indians, five Syrians, two Yemenis and an Egyptian, according to a manifest seen by Reuters.
• A resident of Caluula in Puntland saw pirates transporting food to the hijacked ship.
• The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said last week that a vessel boarded by unauthorised personnel in the Gulf of Aden had been manoeuvred into Somali waters, classifying it as a hijack.
• Somali pirates caused havoc in the waters off the Horn of Africa nation’s long coastline between 2008 and 2018. After a lull, pirate activity started to pick up again in late 2023.
(Reporting by Abdiqani Hassan; Additional reporting by Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu; Writing by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Alexander Winning and Andrew Heavens)