WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2007-02-26 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
Mogadishu – Pirates hijacked a United Nations-chartered freighter off the coast of north-eastern Somalia on Sunday after the ship delivered food aid to the stricken nation.
It was the first time pirates hijacked a boat near Somalia since Ethiopian troops helped government fighters oust a powerful Islamist movement from Mogadishu late last year.
The incident has stoked fears of a new surge in once-rampant piracy.
The freighter, MV Rozen, was seized after delivering 1 800 tons of food aid to the towns of Bosasso and Berbera in the Somali region of Puntland, UN World Food Programme spokesperson Stephanie Savariaud told reporters. The vessel was headed to to its home port in Mombasa, Kenya.
“It was hijacked this morning at about 9.30am near the town of Bargal,” she said, days after Kenyan officials warned of a possible resurgence of piracy off the Horn of Africa.
“As it was heading home, the heavily-armed pirates emerged from a motorboat, they jumped in the ship and seized it,” Andrew Mwangura, of the international Seafarers Assistance Programme told reporters.
“The captain managed to communicate to Sri Lanka. Then the message was sent to Mombasa before the gunmen cut off communications.”
The identity of the pirates remains unknown, but such attacks in the past been blamed on a well organised cartel of Somalis who usually use speed boats mounted with machine guns.
An official from the Motaku Shipping Company that chartered the boat confirmed from Bosasu that it had been hijacked off the semi-autonomous region of Puntland.
He said the ship was carrying a flag from the Caribbean islands of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
“We are not sure where the ship is right now,” Abdulaziz Mohamed Hamud told reporters by telephone.
The vessel had 12 crew members – six Sri Lankans, including the captain, and six Kenyans.
“I do not know what I will tell the relatives of the crew when they start camping outside my office tomorrow,” Motaku company manager Karim Kudrath told reporters by telephone from the head office in Mombasa.
Kudrath said it was the fourth time one of the company’s ships had been hijacked off Somalia.
The MV Rozen itself narrowly escaped an attempted hijack off Somalia last March after another UN humanitarian delivery.
“We are the only shipping company that has agreed to take food to Somalia,” Kudrath said.
“I am very doubtful if we will continue to offer our services to Somalia. It is getting very difficult for us.”
WFP warned that such acts of piracy would undermine the delivery of relief food to Somalia and further aggravate the desperate humanitarian situation there.
“This is an indication that piracy has returned to Somalia,” Mwangura said.
Waters off the uncontrolled 3 700km Somali coastline saw scores of pirate attacks between March 2005 and June last year, when Islamists seized Mogadishu and then moved into much of southern and central Somalia.
Earlier this month, Kenyan maritime officials monitoring the pirate-infested East African coast said raiders had returned to the Somali settlement of Haradere, about 300km north of Mogadishu, after briefly scattering in the face of Islamist rule.
Source: Independent Online (IOL)
URL: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click…/p>