Somali pirates holding hijacked Philippine bulk carrier with 21 crew members
17/10/2008 17:31
Somali pirates are holding a Philippine bulk carrier after hijacking it
this week with 21 crew members aboard, a regional maritime official confirmed
today.
Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the East Africa Seafarers Assistance
Program (SAP) said pirates seized the African Sanderling and its 21 Filipino
crewmen on Wednesday with full cargo of fertilizer.
Mwangura said the
hijacking brought the number of Filipinos being held by pirates to 66 on four
ships.
"I got confirmation that the pirates hijacked African Sanderling on
Wednesday with 21 Filipino crew members. The vessel was sailing from Aqaba,
Jordan with full cargo of fertilizer," Mwangura told Xinhua by
telephone.
Pirates have seized more than two dozen ships this year off the
Horn of Africa, and more than 100 Filipino sailors have been involved in those
raids. One died during an attack.
With more than 270,000 Filipinos on
thousands of vessels around the world, Filipinos account for about a third of
the international shipping industry's crew.
The latest hijackings are part of
a surge of daring maritime attacks off the coast of Somalia, a war-torn country
that has been without a functioning government since 1991.
The waters off its
coast are considered to be some of the worlds most dangerous.
Xinhua
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