Africa News
Somali pirates hijack Norwegian tanker
Mar 6, 2010, 12:50 GMT
London/Nairobi - Somali pirates have hijacked a Norwegian-owned chemical tanker with a crew of 21, European Union naval forces said Saturday.
EU NAVFOR Somalia, the EU's anti-piracy mission in the region, said the UBT Ocean, whose crew are all from Myanmar, was on its way from the United Arab Emirates to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, when contact was lost on Friday morning.
The latest attack comes amidst a spike in pirate activity, prompted by currently calm seas in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden.
On Monday, Saudi tanker al-Nisr al-Saudi and its crew of 14 was hijacked.
Private security guards aboard a Spanish ship repelled a pirate attack on Thursday, then French warship FS Nivose arrested 22 suspected pirates on Friday after another failed hijack attempt
Somalia has not had a functioning central government since 1991, and piracy is rife off the Horn of Africa nation.
Young men take to the seas in search of multimillion-dollar ransoms despite the presence of international warships, which were dispatched to the Gulf of Aden in 2008 to combat a rise in piracy.
Attacks are expected to continue to rise in the coming months due to calmer weather.
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