Africa News
German ship surrenders to pirates after two-day holdout
Jan 25, 2011, 15:56 GMT
Bremen, Germany - The multinational crew of a German ship who holed up in a strongroom for two-and-a-half days have surrendered to Somali pirates after help failed to arrive, their employer said Tuesday.
The freighter Beluga Nomination was seized 800 kilometres north of the Seychelles, far from the main piracy danger zone in the Indian Ocean, the Beluga shipping company in Bremen, Germany said.
The crew of 12, hailing from Poland, Ukraine, Russia and the Philippines, were now being held by the pirates.
The company said they had boarded the ship on Saturday.
Following standard German procedure, the crew shut down all power, radioed for help and withdrew into a barricaded survival centre.
But the pirates had brought high-performance power tools, cut their way into the secure cell and seized the men. The hostages are now sailing the ship at gunpoint to the Somali coast.
'We don't understand why no outside help arrived during the two- and-a-half days that our crew were in the secure space,' said Beluga chief executive Niels Stolberg. European Union navies had been told of the boarding, he said.
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