The Indian Navy on Saturday recaptured a ship from Somalian “pirates” off the Indian coast, the military said, rescuing the crew and ending a three-month takeover of the Maltese-flagged bulk carrier MV Ruen.
The hijacking of the ship in December last year was the first time since 2017 that any cargo vessel had been successfully boarded by Somalian pirates.
“#IndianNavy thwarts designs of Somalian pirates to hijack ships plying through the region by intercepting ex-MV Ruen,” the navy wrote on X.
Photo: Indian Navy on X via AP
The Indian warship INS Kolkata “in the last 40 hours, through concerted actions successfully cornered and coerced all 35 Pirates to surrender & ensured safe evacuation of 17 crew members,” the navy wrote.
Indian forces first intercepted the MV Ruen on Friday, the navy wrote.
“The vessel opened fire on the warship, which is taking actions [in accordance with] international law, in self-defence & to counter piracy, with minimal force necessary to neutralise the pirates’ threat to shipping and seafarers,” the navy wrote.
None of the rescued crew members were injured in the multi-day operation, which was carried out in conjunction with several naval vessels, as well as helicopters and other aircraft, the navy said. The pirated ship was recaptured nearly 1,400 nautical miles (2,593km) from the Indian coast, the military said.
The Indian Navy has kept tabs on the MV Ruen since it was seized by Somalian pirates 380 nautical miles east of the Yemeni island of Socotra. The pirates, who at the time released one injured sailor into the care of the navy, had taken the MV Ruen and its remaining 17 crew members to Somalia’s semi-autonomous state of Puntland, where the navy said it was moored off the city of Bosaso.
The Indian military has stepped up its anti-piracy efforts in the past few months following an uptick in maritime assaults, including in the Arabian Sea and by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea.
Pirate attacks off the Somalian coast peaked in 2011 — with gunmen launching attacks as far as 3,655km from the Somalian coast in the Indian Ocean — before falling off sharply in the past few years.
However, December’s attack followed a spike in armed seaborne attacks around the Horn of Africa not seen in years.
Analysts say Somalian piracy poses nowhere near the threat it did in 2011, when navies around the world had to deploy warships to beat them back.
However, this recent upswing in pirate activity has raised further concerns about marine security and shipping at a time when crucial trade corridors off Yemen have come under siege.
Since the Houthi attacks, many cargo ships have slowed down far out at sea to await instructions on whether to proceed to the Red Sea, which experts say can make them vulnerable to attack.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in
REGIONAL TENSIONS: China boosted spending on its military for the 29th straight year, raising it by 6% to US$296bn, while Taiwan spent US$16.6bn, an 11% increase Global military expenditure recorded its steepest increase in over a decade last year, reaching an all-time high of US$2.4 trillion as wars and rising tensions fueled spending across the world, researchers said yesterday. Military spending rose across the globe with particularly large increases in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, according to a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). “Total military spending is at an all-time high ... and for the first time since 2009, we saw spending increase across all five geographical regions,” SIPRI senior researcher Nan Tian said. Military spending rose by 6.8 percent last year, the