Somali pirates have abandoned three Indian boats seized off the coast of Somalia due to fuel shortages, maritime advocacy groups said on Wednesday.
Sea gangs have seized dozens of ships, including large oil tankers, in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden and are expected to try to capture more vessels due to good weather in the coming months despite a flotilla of foreign warships.
"There are about three of them that were abandoned. The crews are still there. The first two boats got assistance, but the other one we don't know," Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme told Reuters.
Another maritime advocacy group, Ecoterra, confirmed that three Indian cargo dhows -- MSV Krishna Jyot, MSV Al Kadri and MV Safina al-Bayatiri -- had been released by pirates.
It said the pirates were holding six more cargo dhows.
Al Shabaab, an Islamist group fighting Somalia's western-backed government, has condemned the attacks on ships serving Somali businessmen and asked pirates to desist from capturing them.
India said last week that it was trying to trace the whereabouts of nearly 100 sailors on seven Indian vessels taken captive. [ID:nSGE62T0C2]
Somali pirates have made millions of dollars in ransoms by seizing ships off Somalia's coast and have increased their range using motherships -- sometimes the hijacked vessels -- to launch attacks. (Reporting by Jack Kimball; Editing by Jon Boyle)
Source: Reuters.
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