Somali pirates seized a small Dutch vessel today with eight crew members on board, in the latest hijacking in the world's most dangerous waterways, a regional maritime group said.
"It happened in the Gulf of Aden . . . That's all I have at the moment," Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers Assistance Programme, told Reuters.
"The crew are said to be safe. We are hearing there are between eight and 18 crew members, it's not clear yet," he added, naming the boat as the 2,575-tonne Marathon, both owned and flagged from the Netherlands. It was carrying coke fuel.
Somali pirate activity has been frenetic in recent weeks, despite an unprecedented foreign naval deployment intended to deter armed groups marauding in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden.
Pirates freed a UAE-owned cargo ship on Wednesday and captured an Antigua- and Barbuda-flagged vessel the day before.
They are holding about 20 ships with nearly 300 hostages, according to local piracy monitoring groups and the London-based International Maritime Bureau (IMB).
According to latest IMB figures, the pirates have carried out 109 attacks in the Gulf of Aden and off Somalia's coast so far this year, compared with 22 between January-May of 2008.
There have been 28 successful hijackings so far in 2009, up from eight in the first five months of 2008.
Last year, though, was the worst on record for Somali piracy with 42 boats taken.
Reuters