Egyptian ship seized by Somali pirates
Written by Egypt News Thursday, 01 January 2009
Official of
Egyptian Ministry for Foreign Affairs reported that
Somali pirates seized an
Egyptian merchant ship off the
Somali coast on Thursday and are taking it to
Somalia with the crew of 28
Egyptians as hostages
Assistant of
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Rizk said that the
Egyptian ship was the called
Blue Star, had been sailing east with a cargo of 6,000 tones of urea, a product used as a fertilizer.
He added that "we were told that the abductors were about 15 people, some of them armed with non-light weapons"
The
Egyptian government said in December it was ready to take part in an international naval force to tackle piracy off the coast of
Somalia.
Several major shipping companies have decided to divert ships from the
Egyptian Suez Canal route to the
Cape of Good Hope route around
Africa, cutting into
Egypt's revenue from the canal, which is a major hard currency earner for
Egypt.
Warships from
Britain,
India,
Greece,
Italy,
Russia,
Turkey and the
United States are already patrolling the seas where the
pirates operate, so far with limited success.
Egyptian authorities were working to establish "the necessary contacts" to release the ship, said
Rizk.
Somali pirates captured an
Egyptian ship in September but released it after 20 days of negotiations with
Egyptian intelligence.
EGYPT NEWS
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