Somali pirates hold Dutch firm’s crew hostage
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — A Dutch shipping company was negotiating with Somali pirates Tuesday, seeking the release of nine crew members on a freighter that was hijacked in the latest attack on merchant shipping off the coast of Somalia.
Lars Walder, spokesman for the ship’s owner Reider Shipping BV, said his company was in contact with the hijackers and as far as we know none of the crew has been injured or worse.
The crew were four Russians and five Filipinos, he said.
The ship, the MV Amiya Scan, is chartered by a Danish company, Scan-Trans Shipping, and sails under a Panamanian flag of convenience. It departed Kenya on May 19 on its way to Romania and was hijacked Sunday in the Gulf of Aden.
Its cargo was a decommissioned oil platform.
Walder said his company, based in the far northern town of Winschoten, Netherlands, would not comment on the pirates’ demands out of concern for the safety of the crew.
The Amiya Scan was the sixth ship hijacked by Somali pirates in two months, said the Commercial Crimes Services of the International Maritime Bureau. Since Jan. 1, 24 ships have been hijacked in the Gulf of Aden, compared with 44 for all of last year.
