India sends warship to hijacked freighter
After the distress call from a freighter with an Indian crew, India's navy began pursuit with the destroyer "INS Chennai". According to British information, the merchant ship was hijacked off Somalia on Thursday.
A freighter carrying an Indian crew was hijacked off the coast of Somalia in the Arabian Sea. The Indian Navy said it had started tracking after a distress call and was closely monitoring the situation. The destroyer INS Chennai is approaching the MV Lila Norfolk to provide assistance, the Navy continued.
According to reports from the Indian news agency ANI, there are at least 15 Indian crew members on board the Liberian-flagged “MV Lila Norfolk”.
Crew should be unharmed
The Navy did not say whether the cargo ship was currently in the hands of hijackers. However, the Navy stated that a patrol flight had ensured that the crew was safe.
The British Maritime Observatory said on Thursday that five to six armed people had boarded the ship about 460 nautical miles east of the Somali town of Eyl.
According to the captain, the crew barricaded themselves in the ship’s citadel.
It was only at the end of December that India announced the deployment of three warships and a reconnaissance aircraft to the Arabian Sea after a series of attacks on merchant ships.
The coast off Somalia is a hotbed of piracy
The coast off the crisis state of Somalia was a hotspot for pirate attacks a few years ago. As a result of the EU mission “Atalanta”, which has been running since 2008 to combat piracy there, attacks have decreased significantly.
According to the IMB Piracy Reporting Center, there was another attack on December 14th in which a freighter was hijacked and driven to Somalia.
Somalia is located in the Horn of Africa on the other side of the Gulf of Aden from Yemen. Since the outbreak of the Gaza war, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have repeatedly attacked ships in the Red Sea to prevent them from passing through to Israel.
The Red Sea is considered one of the most important shipping routes for world trade because it connects the Mediterranean with the Indian Ocean via the Suez Canal in Egypt. Many shipping companies are currently rerouting their ships and avoiding the Red Sea.
