The crew of a Libyan cargo ship seized back control of their ship from Somali pirates Wednesday after a fight in which some of their captors are believed to have died and a crew member was wounded.

“The hijacked Libyan-owned merchant vessel RIM reported that the crew had successfully retaken control of the ship. One of the crew members was seriously injured during the incident,” a spokesman for the EUNVFOR naval force said.

“It is believed that some of the pirates were killed during the incident. The ship is now under the control of the crew,” added NAVFOR, which sent a vessel to administer medical aid to the survivors.

The mainly Syrian crew of 10 had been taken captive in February and their assailants were demanding $3 million in ransom for their safe return.

In a separate report, pirates armed with rocket-propelled grenades hijacked a Panamanian flagged cargo ship Wednesday in a patrolled stretch of waters in the Gulf of Aden, described as an “internationally recommended transit corridor.”

The MV QSM Dubai has a crew of 24, from Bangladesh, Ghana, Egypt and Pakistan, ac-cording to NAVFOR.

The naval force said that a US warship patrolling the area had “reported that they had seen a person with an RPG-7 onboard,” and after flying over the area, concluded “that the ship was hijacked.”

Source AFP.

Comments

comments