Five Pinoys among crew of hijacked tanker in Yemen
abs-cbnNEWS.com | 08/31/2008 3:50 PM
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Five of the 41 crewmembers of the Malaysian-flagged chemical tanker hijacked in Yemen Friday are Filipinos, an official of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed Sunday.
Esteban Conejos, DFA undersecretary for migrant workers, made the announcement after receiving reports from the Philippine embassy in Nairobi, Kenya and the vessel's manning agency in Manila.
The DFA is now coordinating with concerned Philippine embassies, ship owners and other authorities on efforts to secure the crewmen’s safe release, said Conejos.
The Filipinos were unidentified as of this posting.
The ship's owner, MISC Berhad, said in a statement, "[We] regret to inform that another chemical tanker, MT Bunga Melati 5, has been hijacked by unknown pirates ... on August 29. The incident occurred in international waters off the coast of Yemen."
"MT Bunga Melati 5 was sailing within the vicinity of the designated security corridor. The vessel attempted evasive maneuvering before being overpowered by the hijackers," the statement said.
The tanker was fully laden with 30,000 metric tons of petrochemicals and was heading toward Singapore from Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, the company said.
It said US-led coalition forces nearby were alerted of the attack "but were unable to prevent the hijacking as safety of the crew onboard is of priority."
Noel Choong, head of the Kuala Lumpur-based International Maritime Bureau's (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre confirmed the attack and called on the United Nations to take action in the pirate-infested waterway.
On August 20, a Malaysian palm oil tanker, the Bunga Melati Dua, with 39 crew on board was seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia.
The ship remains in the hands of the pirates and MISC has reported one death so far -- a Filipino crew member -- who died in an "accident" while the tanker was hijacked.
One day later, three more ships -- German, Iranian and Japanese -- were hijacked off the Somali coast in an unprecedented series of attacks.
Choong said the Bunga Melati 5 was the eighth ship to be hijacked since July 20 in the Gulf of Aden, which lies in the Arabian Sea between Yemen on the south coast of the Arabian Peninsula and the north coast of Somalia.
The waters off Somalia are the most pirate-infested in the world, with the IMB reporting 24 attacks -- 19 of which occurred in the Gulf of Aden -- between April and June this year. With Agence France-Presse
