Pirates flee ahead of South Korean navy warship
A South Korean naval ship Thursday rescued a Hanjin Shipping container ship that had been attacked by pirates in the Indian Ocean.
Hanjin Shipping said it lost contact at about 5 a.m. Thursday morning (Korean time) with the Hanjin Tianjin, which has a capacity of 6,500 20-foot equivalent units.
The Hanjin Tianjin has a crew of 14 South Koreans and six Indonesians, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported. It said the ship transmitted a distress call in pirate-infested waters about 250 miles east of Yemen's Socotra Island just before contact was lost.
Hanjin said the pirates attacked the vessel twice, causing some damage. The crew stopped the ship's engine "to hold the ship and hid in the citadel to protect themselves from the pirate attack," Hanjin said in a statement.
The South Korean Navy formed an emergency response team and sent the Choi Young, a 4,400 ton helicopter-carrying warship with a crew of 200, to the scene of the attacks, according to Cho Byung-jae, a spokesman for South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
By the time the Choi Young arrived at the scene of the attacks, the pirates had fled.
Ecoterra, an advocacy group that monitors piracy off the east African coast, says Somalia-based pirates hold 49 ships and 769 hostages.
In recent years Somali pirates operating off the coast of East Africa have hijacked at least eight South Korean ships, all of which were released, many after South Korean companies paid a ransom.
In January, South Korean commandos attacked the tanker Samho Jewelry after it had been hijacked, killing eight pirates and arresting five others, with no loss of life to crew members. The surviving pirates were brought back to South Korea and are now awaiting trial.
Piracy at sea hit an all-time high in the first three months of 2011, with 142 attacks worldwide, according to the latest global piracy report by the International Maritime Bureau of the International Chamber of Commerce.
The sharp rise was driven by a surge in piracy off the coast of Somalia, where 97 attacks were recorded in the first quarter of 2011, up from 35 in the same period last year.
Peter T. Leach | Apr 21, 2011 1:39PM GMT
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