Manila: Somali gunmen have hijacked a Japanese cargo ship and a Chinese fishing vessel with a total of 21 Filipino crew members on board while Nigeria's military arrested 22 Filipino seamen on suspicion of stealing crude oil.
The sea raids on Friday and Saturday brought to 135 the number of Filipinos in captivity in troubled African regions. Two Filipinos, however, were among the 22-man crew set free on Saturday when pirates released the Japanese chemical tanker Stolt Valor, according to the Seafarers Assistance Program in Kenya. The tanker was seized on Sept. 15. Later that day, the 20,000-ton Chemstar Venus, owned by a Japanese company and manned by five South Koreans and 18 Filipinos, was seized 155 kilometers east of Somalia's port city of Aden, South Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement. South Korean officials said they had no information on the condition of the crew or whether or not the gunmen had asked for ransom. On Friday, Chinese fishing vessel Tianyu-8 carrying a crew of 24-three of them Filipinos-was also hijacked by suspected Somali pirates. Some estimates put the amount of crude stolen from the Niger Delta at 100,000 barrels per day, equivalent to around $5.6 million daily or $2 billion a year at current prices. It is shipped out of Nigeria and sold in the international market. Meanwhile, the European Union launched last week a security operation off the coast of Somalia-its first-ever naval mission-to combat the growing acts of piracy and to protect ships carrying aid agency deliveries.
Read More
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment