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NATO frees hostages from pirates, new ship seized
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-04-18 20:46 ON BOARD CORTE-REAL - Dutch commandos freed 20 Yemeni hostages on Saturday and briefly detained seven pirates who had forced their captives to sail a "mother ship" attacking vessels in the Gulf of Aden, NATO officials said. Meanwhile, pirates seized a Belgian-registered ship and its 10-member crew, including two Belgians, further south in the Indian Ocean. A pirate source said the vessel, the Pompei, would be taken to the coast.
NATO Lieutenant Commander Alexandre Fernandes, speaking on board the Portuguese warship Corte-Real, said the 20 fishermen were rescued after a Dutch navy frigate on a NATO patrol responded to an assault on a Greek-managed tanker by pirates firing assault rifles and grenades. The Dutch ship, the HNLMS De Zeven Provincien, chased the pirates, who were on a small skiff, back to their "mother ship" -- a hijacked Yemeni fishing dhow. "We have freed the hostages, we have freed the dhow and we have seized the weapons ... The pirates did not fight and no gunfire was exchanged," Fernandes said. The Corte-Real is also on a NATO mission. He said the hostages had been held since last week. The commandos briefly detained and questioned the seven gunmen, he said, but had no legal power to arrest them. "NATO does not have a detainment policy. The warship must follow its national law," he said. "They can only arrest them if the pirates are from the Netherlands, the victims are from the Netherlands, or if they are in Netherlands waters." He said an unexploded rocket-propelled grenade was later found on board the tanker, the Marshall Islands-flagged MT Handytankers Magic managed by Roxana Shipping SA of Greece. A Belgian government crisis centre spokesman said concerns grew for the Pompei, a dredging vessel, after it put out two alarm signals early on Saturday when it was about 600 km (370 miles) from the Somali coast en route to Seychelles. A pirate source who said he was on board the Pompei said in Mogadishu by telephone that the pirates would take it to a coastal base. "We have hijacked a Belgian ship. We will take it to Haradheere," he said. He declined to be named. Chaos Onshore Regional analysts and security experts say that without political stability in Somalia, which has been mired in conflict for 18 years, the pirate gangs will continue to thrive. On Friday five gunmen in a skiff neared a Danish cargo vessel, the MV Puma, in the Gulf of Aden, prompting US and South Korean warships to send aircraft to the scene. Last week, pirates from the lawless Horn of Africa state captured two more ships and fired on two others. A French naval frigate seized 11 gunmen on Wednesday, foiling another attack. The Somali government plans to present its proposals to combat the sea gangs at a major donors' meeting on Somalia due to take place in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday. It says it needs more money to tackle insecurity on land and to provide jobs for the country's many out-of-work young men. Most of Somalia's pirate gangs operate from the semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland, where many of them say they first took to the seas to stop illegal fishing by European fleets and the dumping of toxic waste. Puntland President Abdirahman Mohamed Farole also blamed ship owners for paying ransoms that encouraged impoverished youths to join the gunmen. "But the root cause of this piracy, as everyone knows, is illegal fishing," Farole said in neighbouring Kenya. "That situation still exists, so any activity directed at eliminating piracy should also be combined with the elimination of illegal fishing by foreign trawlers." |
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