Somali pirates hijack Indian cargo ship with 15 aboard

An Indian cargo vessel with 15 crew members on board has been hijacked by Somali pirates off the port city of Bosasso in Gulf of Aden waters.

An Indian cargo vessel with 15 crew members on board has been hijacked by Somali pirates off the port city of Bosasso in Gulf of Aden waters,a media report said on Saturday.

The vessel with 15 Indian crew was captured on Friday just 14 nautical miles off the port city of Bosasso after it had discharged goods from UAE at the Somali harbour from where it was sailing off,the Australian.to website reported.

The report said that a business deal between the pirates and the authorities had gone sour. The authorities have dispatched a security detail to re-capture the vessel which is at the moment commandeered towards Qandala,the online report said.

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The vessel is said to operate regularly between Saudi Arabia and the African coast.

Andrew Mwangura,coordinator of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme,based in Kenya’s Mombasa port said that it could have been a case of “a business deal that went sour”.

Noel Choong,Head of the International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Centre here,could not be reached for his comments.

On Wednesday,pirates had seized a Turkish ship with 23 crew members on board carrying sulfate from Saudi Arabia to Jordan,also in the Gulf of Aden.