Two commercial vessels with 22 Indians on board have been hijacked by armed pirates in separate incidents off Yemen and Somalia, a senior shipping ministry official said on Friday, according to a report by PTI. All Indian crew members aboard both ships are safe, the official added.
The first vessel, a Cameroon-flagged M/V LUTUF, which had 10 crew members, including six Indians, was hijacked on August 17 off Somalia’s Puntland coast. The second ship, an Eritrea-flagged oil-products tanker M.T. Sibu 1, carrying 20 crew members, including 16 Indians, was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden three days later on August 20, off the Yemeni coast, the official said.
The official said that six armed pirates were aboard M.T. Sibu and had taken control of the vessel, while eight armed pirates with AK-47-type weapons boarded M/V LUTUF and were operating from two skiffs.
Eight armed hijackers steered M/V LUTUF towards the Nugaal coast. The men are suspected of being involved in previous hijacking too.
The ship was seized about three and a half nautical miles off Marraya in Puntland’s Eyl district and was subsequently taken toward Somalia’s Nugaal coast, according to a Somali official cited by The Associated Press.
The crew in M/V LUTUF “initially mustered in the citadel. However, the pirates gained access and subsequently brought them to the bridge. The vessel is currently under pirate control. No injuries have been reported thus far,” the official said.
The crew on the ship consisted of six Indians, one Turkish national, one Georgian national and two Serbian security guards. Meanwhile, the cargo ship was carrying Turkish weapons, communications, and satellite equipment and destined for a Turkish military training facility in Mogadishu.
