Pirates seize Greek vessel off Seychelles
MOGADISHU — Somali pirates on Wednesday captured a Greek cargo ship with its 24 crew members off the Seychelles, an Indian Ocean nation off which the hijackers have ramped up attacks in recent weeks.
The Filitsa was seized while on its way to South Africa from Kuwait ferrying a chemical cargo of urea, said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenya-based Seafarers Assistance Programme.
The hijackers used three speed boats to launch the attack, according to Abdi Yare, a pirate who spoke to AFP by phone from Harardhere, a village in northern Somalia and a safe haven for the sea bandits.
Filitsa's crew include 19 Filipinos and three Greeks, and was seized 400 kilometres (250 miles) off the Seychelles, the European Union's naval mission said.
The Marshall Islands-flagged Filitsa, which was heading for Durban when it was hijacked, has been turned round and is currently moving north, the EU's Atalanta mission said.
In a separate incident, Somali pirates also seized a fishing boat in the Indian Ocean nearer to the lawless Horn of Africa country, said Mwangura, but the vessel's identity was not yet clear.
Later the EU reported that two inflatable boats from Norwegian warship Fridtjof Nansen returned fire when they were shot at from dhows, some 400 metres (1,300 feet) away, during a routine patrol off the Somali coast.
There were no casualties on the EU side as their boats "withdrew to a safe distance, the Atalanta mission said.
Since last month, Somali pirates have gone on the rampage in the Indian Ocean with calm waters at the end of the monsoon season enabling them to launch attacks as far as 1,000 nautical miles from the capital Mogadishu.
Last year, Western nations deployed a flotilla of warships to secure the Gulf of Aden as a surge in piracy threatened a key maritime route. This has since seen the pirates switch to the Indian Ocean.
On Tuesday, the Seychelles and the European Union signed an agreement authorising EU naval forces to hunt and detain suspected Somali pirates in waters off the Seychelles.
The deal is also designed to help the tiny Indian Ocean nation develop its own anti-piracy capacities, the foreign affairs ministry said.
The Seychelles had already signed similar agreements with France and the United States.
The latest spate of hijackings has seen the seizure of several vessels, including an Indian cargo ship, a Spanish trawler, a Singapore container ship and a Chinese bulk carrier.
At the weekend, pirates captured a cargo ship from the United Arab Emirates whose cargo has sparked a dispute, with a Somali government official saying it comprised weapons.
But the cargo owners have denied the claim, saying the vessel which was seized on November 7 was ferrying building equipment and an assortment of general cargo to Mogadishu.
In a statement, Ismail Haji Noor -- the Somalia transitional government's anti-piracy official -- said the ship had a "a wide range of weapons."
He added that he had informed the EU's anti-piracy operation Atalanta of the hijacking and "the unfortunate possibility that the captors themselves could now offload the weapons and bring them to shore - to either use or sell them".
Noor said that despite his warning no Atalanta vessels in the area had sailed to Garad where the "weapons ship" was brought ashore to investigate or prevent arms from being offloaded.
Details of the ship, including its name, were unclear.
But the trader who says he owns much of the cargo on the vessel have denied there are arms aboard.
"Categorically, it is a lie that the ship was carrying weapons, this kind of nasty propaganda will only help pirates," Juba General Trading Company chairman Abdi Ali Farah told AFP by phone.
"Dubai is not a source of weapons but is the hub of essential goods for commerce."
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Somali pirates have seized a cargo vessel with 22 crew members. The Greek-owned MV Filitsa was hijacked on Wednesday in the Indian Ocean, several hundred kilometres northeast of the Seychelles islands.

The ship was carrying cargo from Kuwait to South Africa. The European Union's anti-piracy force Atalanta said the crew includes three Greeks and 19 Filipinos. The ship has turned around and is now heading north, Atalanta said. There were conflicting reports as to whether the vessel was seized 400 kilometres or 750 kilometres off of the Seychelles coast.

There are reports that Somali pirates have also hijacked a fishing boat, but identity of that vessel was not immediately clear.

The pirates have hijacked at least eight boats in the Indian Ocean since the start of October. They are holding at least a dozen ships overall, with more than 200 crew members.  

Naval forces from the United States, EU, NATO, and other world powers are patrolling the waters around Somalia trying to protect commercial shipping; however, the patrols appear to have had little impact on the pirates, who have focused their efforts on the vast Indian Ocean. Many hijackings have occurred near the Seychelles, a group of islands southeast of Somalia.