Somali pirates captured a freighter, a bulk carrier and a chemical tanker in a few days, defying foreign warships in the Gulf of Aden and ending the year with a flurry after collecting millions in ransom. The marauding sea bandits' latest catch was the St James Park, a UK-flagged chemical tanker with a crew of 26 from nine different countries, Andrew Mwangura of the East Africa Seafarers Assistance Programme said Tuesday.
He said the vessel, which was seized on Monday en route from Spain to Thailand, had been commandeered near the northern Somali coast. "It is expected to arrive there later this evening," Mwangura told AFP. He said the vessel's last port of call was Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and that the crew included seamen from Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Philippines, Poland, Georgia, India and Turkey.
Also on Monday, Somali pirates captured a Greek-owned bulk carrier transporting fertiliser, Mwangura said. The 52,000-tonne Navios Apollon was hijacked "en route from Tampa, Florida to Rozy, India," with a crew consisting of a Greek captain and 18 Filipinos. The "Panama-flagged handymax bulk carrier, reported... that a number of armed men had boarded the vessel from two speed boats," operators Navios Maritime Partners said in a statement.
Earlier, pirates seized a Yemeni freighter and 15 crew members. The Al-Mahmoudia2 left the port of Aden, in Yemen, on December 18, the Yemeni authorities said on Monday, without revealing the nature of its cargo or destination. Crucially, the Yemeni freighter and the UK-flagged chemical tanker was intercepted by pirates in the Gulf of Aden, a key maritime bottleneck near the entrance to the Red Sea.