MikeLigalig.com

Agence France Presse

A group of Filipino seamen were among crew members on board a Japanese chemical tanker hijacked by suspected pirates Sunday off the coast of northern Somalia.

Maritime officials in Nairobi, Kenya identified the vessel as the Panama-flagged Golden Mori that has 23 crewmen.

The vessel, believed to be carrying oil products, sent a distress message Sunday. The SOS was picked up by a rescue center in Norway and relayed to the International Maritime Bureau's (IMB) Piracy Reporting Center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

"We tried to establish contact with the ship but we failed to get any response, so we than contacted coalition warships in the area," IMB spokesman Noel Choong told AFP.

The coalition naval forces informed the IMB that the ship then entered Somali territorial waters, meaning no rescue could be initiated, he said.

"Somalia has no central government so that's a big problem," Choong said.

The captain and chief engineer are Koreans, and the remainder of the crew are Filipinos and Myanmar nationals, Choong said.

Choong added that for the past two weeks there has been a spike in piracy activity off the coast of war-torn Somalia, including another successful hijacking on October 17 on a cargo ship which was travelling to Mombasa, Kenya.

"It was attacked with automatic weapons and hijacked. As of last week there was still no information about the safety of the crew and the location of the ship," he said.

Choong said there were also two unsuccessful hijacking attempts in the lawless region earlier this month, but that the pirates failed to board the ships.

In Tokyo, a Japanese foreign ministry official confirmed the attack on the Panama-flagged ship.

"There are no Japanese among the crew members, but we won't disclose further information as the maritime company has requested us not to," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Pirates have attacked several vessels this year off Somalia's vast and largely unpatrolled coastline, according to the IMB.

The attacks stopped in the second half of 2006 during six months of strict rule by Islamists, who were ousted by Ethiopian and Somali government troops at the end of the year.

Somalia, which lies at the mouth of the Red Sea, has been without an effective government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre sparked a bloody power struggle.


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