Somali pirates have hijacked a Taiwanese fishing boat with 14 crew-members on board in the Indian Ocean off Madagascar, the European Union's anti-piracy mission announced on Friday.
Location of the hijacking, some 250 nautical miles from Madagascar, is the southernmost part from where a piracy was reported since the European Union began its anti-piracy mission off Somalia in December 2008, says the EU force.
The mission said the crew on board the hijacked fishing boat 'FV Feng Guo' included a Taiwanese skipper and sailors from Vietnam, China and Indonesia, adding that the vessel had set sail from Port Louis in Mauritius on October 1.
Capture of the 14 crew-members on board the Taiwanese trawler means "Somali pirates are currently holding 18 ships with 383 hostages," the mission said in a statement.
The development comes just over three weeks after the EU anti-piracy force announced that it was extending the area covered by its current operations off the coast of Somalia in an effort to counter the pirates' tactics of shifting their operations into new areas to avoid detection.
Currently, the EU NAVFOR and other counter-piracy forces are conducting regular patrols in the Gulf of Aden, off the Somali coast and parts of the Indian Ocean, forcing the pirates to operate in previously unexplored areas to avoid interception by international anti-piracy forces.
The Somali coast, particularity the Gulf of Aden, has been affected by increased piracy in recent years. More than 160 pirate attacks have been reported in the waters off Somalia since the beginning of last year. Generally, the crew and the vessels are returned unharmed on receiving the demanded ransom.
Pirate attacks off the Somali coast continued despite the presence of several warships deployed by Navies of the NATO, the European Union, Russia, China, South Korea and India in the region to protect cargo and cruise ships against piracy.
The U.N. Security Council has approved four resolutions since June to promote international efforts in fighting escalating sea piracy off Somalia, authorizing countries involved in anti-piracy operations to conduct land and air attacks on Somali pirates after obtaining prior permission from the interim Somali government.
Somalia has been without a functioning government since the fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre's government in 1991. Currently, a weak U.N.-backed interim government headed by President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed is trying to enforce its authority in the country, most of which is controlled by various Islamist insurgent groups.
by RTT Staff Writer
Source: RTT
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