Ship with 10 Indians hijacked off Somalia

A year after it narrowly missed getting captured by pirates on the high seas around the Horn of Africa, a Jordanian-registered merchant vessel Victoria, whose crew included at least 10 Indians, had been hijacked, officials of the directorate-general of shipping confirmed here on Monday.

The shipping authorities here said the vessel had been hijacked off the coast of Somalia on Saturday. The seizure allegedly occurred on the 3,700-km coastline of Somalia, large stretches of which are not patrolled by the Somali coast guard or by international sea safety agencies. This is the third such hijacking case so far this year.

According to a top shipping official, the Indian authorities were trying to investigate the matter but were being thwarted in their efforts as there was no intimation about the incident by the shipowners.

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