Somalia: Hijacked ship anchors

2005-10-04 12:01

Nairobi - A released United Nations-chartered ship ferrying relief food to tsunami victims has arrived in the Somali port of El-Maan, two days after pirates abandoned the vessel and allowed its crew to sail to freedom, officials said on Tuesday.

The MV Semlow - registered in St Vincent and the Grenadines - and its 10-member crew arrived at the port about 35km north of the capital Mogadishu after it was towed by another hijacked ship also abandoned by the hijackers on Sunday.

They said the vessel would offload its cargo - the 850 tons of German-and Japanese-donated rice intended for Somali tsunami victims - before sailing south to the home port of Mombasa.

"They will start offloading the cargo today," said Seafarer's assistance programme's official Andrew Mwangura.

Pirates vandalised ship

Mwangura explained that the pirates looted part of the cargo and vandalised communication gadgets in the ship, which was seized on June 27 and gunmen spurned several World Food Programme's (WFP) demands for its unconditional release.

The vessel will take "another three to four days in El-Maan (port) before it begins to sail to (the Kenyan port city of) Mombasa", said Karim Kudrathi, director of the Mombasa-based Motaku Shipping Agency, which owns the vessel.

The gunmen left the ship on Sunday afternoon as it was being towed by a second hijacked ship, MV Ibn Batouta, hijacked by the same pirates on September 24, after an agreement was struck between the gunmen and the Somali owner of the cement cargo on the second vessel.

According to the International Maritime Bureau, almost two dozen incidents of piracy were reported off the Somali coast since mid-March.

- AFP