Somali pirates seized cargo ship off Berbera port (Reuters)

[Shilling]

Somali pirates hijack Cambodian cargo ship off Berbera port

 

NAIROBI, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Somali gunmen hijacked a Cambodian cargo ship, the MV Layla-S, off Berbera after it unloaded at the port in the breakaway northern enclave of Somaliland, a regional maritime official said on Thursday. "Crew members on board the ill-fated vessel are ... Pakistani, Indian, Sri Lankan, Somali and Syrian nationals," Andrew Mwangura of the Mombasa, Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme said in a statement.

 

"It is said that the vessel has a link with Syrian and UAE businessmen. We are informed that she was taken by gunmen after discharging her cargo." The hijacking appeared to have happened on Wednesday, but few other details were immediately available. The seizure came a week after Somali pirates freed a Greek-flagged tanker carrying 2 million barrels of oil for a record ransom.

 

Somaliland, which declared itself independent in 1991, is proud of its relative stability compared with the south of Somalia, where hardline Islamist rebels control large amounts of territory and are battling a weak Western-backed government.

 

Worldwide, piracy attacks rose by nearly 40 percent last year, with Somali gangs accounting for more than half the 406 reported incidents, the International Maritime Bureau says.

 

Typically, pirates from the failed Horn of Africa state hold the captured ships and crews hostage until ransoms are paid.

 

The International Chamber of Shipping, which represents 75 percent of the global seaborne industry, said this month that it felt deepening frustration at the international community's "impotence" in combating growing piracy in the Indian Ocean.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE60R130

[Jacaylbaro]

Hijacked Cambodian cargo ship no pirate attack: official

 

 

A hijacked Cambodian cargo ship is being held off Somalia's Berbera port by businessmen owing to a deal which has gone sour and not pirate attack, a regional maritime official confirmed on Saturday.

 

Andrew Mwangura, East Africa's Coordinator of Seafarers Assistance Program (SAP), said the MV Layla-S which was seized on Wednesday after it unloaded at the port in the semi-autonomous region of Somaliland has 14 crew members on board from Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Somalia and Syria.

 

"The ill-fated Cambodian flagged cargo ship MV LAYLA-S is being held hostage in port Berbera by Somali businessmen owing to a deal which has gone sour," Mwangura said by telephone from Mombasa, east Kenya.

 

"It is said that the vessel has link with Syrian and UAE business men. We are informed that she was taken by gunmen after discharging her cargo," he said.

 

Piracy has become rampant off the coast of Africa, especially in the waters near Somalia, which has been without an effective government since 1991.

 

Ransoms started out in the tens of thousands of dollars and have since climbed into the millions.

 

The Horn of Africa nation is at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden, which leads to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, one of the world's most important shipping channels.

 

The country has been plagued by factional fighting between warlords and hasn't had a functioning central administration since the 1991 ouster of former dictator Mohammed Siad Barre.

 

The Gulf of Aden, off the northern coast of Somalia, has the highest risk of piracy in the world. About 25,000 ships use the channel south of Yemen, between the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea.

 

 

Source: Xinhua

[Shilling]

I don't know what your on but the link I've provided clearly reads "Somali pirates hijack Cambodian cargo ship off Berbera port". Nothing to hide here sxb, you can cherry pick all you like but the fact of the matter is this is nothing new on our nations shores.

[Jacaylbaro]

You shouldn't be pissed off now ,,,,,,

 

 

"The ill-fated Cambodian flagged cargo ship MV LAYLA-S is being held hostage in port Berbera by Somali businessmen owing to a deal which has gone sour," Mwangura said by telephone from Mombasa, east Kenya.

and the title clearly says:

 

Hijacked Cambodian cargo ship no pirate attack: official

[Jacaylbaro]

Reported hijacking of Cambodian ship false

 

 

A Cambodian-flagged vessel believed to have been hijacked by Somali pirates was in fact detained by authorities at the port of Berbera in Somaliland on the Gulf of Aden, according to media reports published on Sunday.

 

News reports late last week said that on January 27, Somali pirates hijacked the MV Layla-S after it unloaded its cargo at the port of Berbera in an autonomous region of Somalia known as Somaliland, which formed its own government in the northwestern section of the country after the East African state collapsed in 1991.

 

The hijacking scenario seemed particularly plausible given the past year’s massive surge in attacks by Somali pirates on shipping vessels passing through the Gulf of Aden.

 

Despite its carrying the Cambodian flag, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Koy Kuong told the Post on Thursday that the MV Layla-S was neither owned nor operated by Cambodians.

 

He said that he believed the crew consisted of Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Somali and Syrian nationals.

 

The piracy reports were challenged by a story from Somaliland Press, dated January 23 in Somali and January 24 in English, in which a reporter speaks with the ship’s Sri Lankan captain, a “Mr Sarath”, who explained that the ship had been impounded by port officials in September, leaving the crew to languish in increasingly poor health.

 

“Local analysts believe a local firm, Omar International [Company], may have filed a maritime action asking ... Berbera Port authority to obtain the ship for damages,” the article reads.

 

The captain explained that in early September of 2009, a vessel called the MV Mariam Star caught fire, resulting in major cargo losses for Omar International. The Layla-S was then seized in lieu of a settlement because it is owned by the same company as the Mariam Star, Dubai-based Al-Hufoof Shipping and Forwarding.

 

The Cambodian registration of the MV Layla-S is known as a “flag of convenience”, a registration in a third-party country which takes advantage of that country’s low costs and sparse regulations.

[Jacaylbaro]

Source