Somali gunmen hijack ship
2006-11-03 14:25
Mogadishu - Gunmen have hijacked a vessel off the lawless coast of Somalia, says the owner of the cargo on board, raising fears of a resurgence in piracy in Somali waters after a several-month lull.
He said the United Arab Emirates-flagged MV Fishana and its crew of 12 were seized near Adale, 95km northeast of Mogadishu on Thursday, as it sailed to Dubai from the Somali port of El-Maan.
Abdulrahman Olow, the Somali businessman who charted the Fishana to carry a load of charcoal, said: "The captain told me that gunmen hijacked his ship around the Adale coast and forced him to sail to an unknown destination."
"We are not aware of its location, but perhaps it is somewhere deep inside Indian Ocean. I think the hijackers have links with the pirates who were hunting ships off the Somali coast."
Somali waters plagued by piracy
Olow said: "We thought the era of hijackers had ended, but this shows us that there still pirates in our waters."
Somali waters had been plagued by scores of piracy incidents between March 2005 and June this year, when a powerful Islamist movement seized Mogadishu and much of southern and central Somalia and began enforcing strict Sharia law.
The Islamists, who were girding for war against the country's weak government, had vowed to eradicate piracy and had taken control of several Somali ports from where pirates were known to operate.
Islamist officials declined to comment on the reported hijacking of the Fishana, which came just a day after a court in Kenya sentenced ten Somalis to seven years in prison each after convicting them of piracy in a landmark trial.
The spate of hijacking incidents off the unpatrolled 3 700km Somali coast, which included more than 40 attacks on vessels, prompted dire warnings from the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).
Somalia had been without a functioning central government since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre and its two-year-old transitional government had been wracked by infighting and was now challenged by the Islamists.