Pirates seize ship with 20 Pinoy seafarers off Kenya

Ransom-seeking Somali pirates seized on Sunday 20 Filipino sailors on board a Japanese vessel, bringing to 101 the total number of Philippine seafarers being held in the Gulf of Aden. An initial information from the International Maritime Bureau (IMB)’s Piracy Reporting Center in Kuala Lumpur showed the Filipino crew were taken hostage. “Normally, pirate activity picks up off the Africa coast when the South West monsoon recedes. We are monitoring the situation after the attack on the ship but won’t be able to give more details at the moment," Cyrus Mody of the IMB said in an article posted on United Arab Emirates news site Khaleej Times Tuesday. Khaleej Times quoted the Japanese transport ministry as saying the Panama-flagged ship named Izumi, was operated by NYK-Hinode Line Ltd. It said the ship was carrying a cargo of steel and was heading for Mombasa. In a later report, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said a European Union naval force, which regularly conducts patrol in the area, immediately dispatched a Danish and French warship to track the MV Izumi after receiving a distress call from the hijacked vessel. French warship FS FLOREAL is now monitoring the pirated vessel which is presently 170 nautical miles South of Mogadishu, it said. It added that it is coordinating with the local manning agency of the vessel to secure the safe and early release of the seafarers. The DFA said it has also instructed the Philippine embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Tokyo to keep track of the negotiations being undertaken by the vessel’s principal, Fair Field Shipping Corp. Manila likewise reported the incident to the United States-led international maritime security task force in Manama, Bahrain. Japan assured the Philippine government that it will help secure Filipino seafarers against pirates in the Gulf of Aden through the dispatch of vessels and maritime patrol air crafts. Filipinos account for 70 percent or 30,000 seafarers manning Japanese vessels, the DFA said. On June 19, 2009, Japan’s Diet passed the Anti-Piracy Measures Law, which penalizes acts of piracy and provides for measures to enable the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to protect commercial ships, both Japanese and non-Japanese, from pirates operating off the coast of Somalia and the Gulf of Aden. The Philippines is the world’s leading supplier of ship crew with over 350,000 sailors, or about a fifth of the world’s seafarers, manning oil tankers, luxury liners, and passenger vessels worldwide, exposing them to piracy attacks. As a policy, the Philippine government does not negotiate nor pay ransom to kidnappers, but gives ship owners the free hand in negotiating for the release of abducted Filipino sailors. — LBG, GMANews.TV