Singapore-flagged vessel hijacked by Somali pirates in Indian Ocean

Somali pirates seized a Singapore-flagged container ship in the Indian Ocean near the Seychelles. -- PHOTO: AFP

By: Nguyen Ha Huyen Van

The European Union Naval Forces said that a Singapore-flagged container vessel was hijacked on Thursday, October 15 in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia.

Adrew Mwangura, head of the East African Seafarers Assistance Programme said: “The Singapore-flagged and owned boxship Kota Wajar was seized around 300 nautical miles north the Seychelles,” in a report by Channel NewsAsia.

Twenty-one crew members are on board the ship that was heading to port Mombasa, Kenya.

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said that the ship set sail at 10am local time on Wednesday and have confirmed alongside with the maritime security centre of the European Union that the hijack happened at around 2am on Thursday morning.

Investigations by the maritime security centre of the European Union are now underway and MPA is also working with Pacific International Lines, the vessel company that owns the hijacked ship, to resolve the crisis.

The crew members held hostage on the ship are of different nationalities including Sri Lankan, Indonesian, Pakistan, Indian and Singaporean, the head of MPA’s Operations Planning Department Daknashamoorthy Ganasen said.

The Indian High Commissioner in Singapore, T C A Raghavan said that the shipping company and the Singapore government are working closely together to ensure the safety of crew members onboard and secure the release of the ship.

“We are very concerned about the crew members’ safety and our prayers are with them”, the managing director of the shipping company Teo Siong Seng said in an interview with The Straits Times.

Kok Ken, brother of a Singaporean onboard the ship, said: “I was informed by the Singapore office that the ship has safely arrived in Somalia, and everyone is unharmed. They also claimed to be in the process of negotiation with the pirates.”

However, some family members of the crew have expressed dissatisfaction with the company’s actions to resolve the crisis.

“The ship owners are only concerned about their own benefits, not about the crew member. We need to pressurise them, otherwise they won’t act,” Nirosha Srisavan, wife of a Singapore permanent resident onboard the ship said.

She added that the company did not tell them when the crew members will be released.

A source from the AFP wires says that the latest hijack has brought the total number of vessels seized by Somali pirates to at least six. The other vessels that were captured included a Taiwanese trawler, a Spanish fishing vessel and German, Ukrainian and Turkish freighters.