Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The M/S Columbus arrived in the western Yemeni port of Hodeida, where 420 passengers and crew were taking charter flights to Dubai on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula. The ship will continue with a limited crew through the Gulf of Aden, where Somali pirates have targeted commercial ships, cruise liners and yachts.
Meanwhile, Somali pirates freed a Greek cargo ship and its 19 crew members on Monday, nearly three months after it was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden.
Lt. Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet in Bahrain, and Philippines Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Esteban Conejos confirmed the release of the M/V Captain Stephanos on Wednesday.
Pirates have attacked 32 vessels and hijacked 12 of them since NATO deployed a four-vessel flotilla in the region on Oct. 24. They have netted more than $30 million in ransoms along Africa's longest and most lawless coast.
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| In this photo taken Wednesday, April 30, 2008, the MS Columbus cruise ship is seen passing through the Suez canal in Ismailia, Egypt. German cruise operator Hapag-Lloyd said Tuesday Dec. 9, 2008, that the MS Columbus will evacuate passengers before sailing through waters off the Somali coast and fly them to the next port of call to protect them from possible pirate attacks. The ship will drop off its 246 passengers at the port of Hodeidah in Yemen, before the ship and some of its crew sail through the Gulf. The passengers will take a charter flight from there to Dubai and spend three days at a five-star hotel waiting to rejoin the 150-meter (490-foot) vessel in the southern Oman port of Salalah for the remainder of a round-the-world tour that began in Italy.(AP Photo) |
On Nov. 30, pirates fired upon the M/S Nautica — a cruise liner carrying 650 passengers and 400 crew — but the ship outran its assailants.
The Hamburg, Germany-based Hapag-Lloyd cruise company said Tuesday that it was taking the precaution of removing the Columbus cruise passengers because the German government denied its request for a security escort through the gulf.
Passengers will spend three days at a five-star hotel in Dubai waiting to rejoin the 490-foot vessel in Oman's port of Salalah for the remainder of the around-the-world trip, which began in Italy.
The surge in piracy in the busy shipping lane leading to and from the Suez Canal threatens to take a heavy economic toll. Some commercial shipping companies have announced plans to bypass the Gulf of Aden by taking the much longer and costlier route around the southern tip of Africa.
At least two other cruise operators have also altered or canceled routes that would have brought passengers within reach of pirates.
Mohammed Abdel-Moghni, the head of a tour agency in Yemen that was handling the Columbus passengers' onward travel, said a first group has left on a flight for Dubai. Others were staying in Yemen to tour the mountainous villages of Manakha or Yemen's capital, San'a. They will be leaving on a later flight, he said.
Conejos said he was unaware if a ransom had been paid to pirates for the release of the M/V Captain Stephanos, which is Greek-owned by flies a Bahamas flag.
Its 19 crew members — 17 Filipinos, one Chinese and one Ukrainian — were in "good health" and the ship was sailing to Italy before proceeding to Greece, Conejos said, citing a report by ship owners.
Ships still being held by pirates for huge ransoms
include a Saudi oil tanker carrying $100 million in crude and a
Ukrainian ship loaded with tanks and heavy weapons.
SOURCE: AP, Wednesday, December 10, 2008