At what point do we come to the conclusion that there is a rouge pirate fleet roaming the seas? I’m going to say we’ve walked that plank when 3 ships are highjacked within 5 days.
Two cargo ships have been hijacked in the Gulf of Aden between Yemen and Somalia, a Kenyan maritime official said Thursday.
“The ill-fated vessels under captivity are MV Lehmann and MV Arean,” said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenyan Seafarers Association.
The ships were taken Wednesday in roughly the same area where the Dutch-owned MV Amiya Scan was hijacked Sunday, he said. Mwangura did not know who owned the ships and had no more details on the hijackings.
The MV Lehmann and MV Arean hijackings would bring the number of attacks this year on ships near the Somali coast and elsewhere in the Gulf of Aden to 26, according to the International Maritime Bureau.
The bureau, which tracks piracy, said there had been 24 attacks as of Tuesday. Of those, seven were successful hijackings, the officials said.
A spokesman for the bureau said Thursday that no one was there to answer questions regarding the new hijackings.
Cyrus Mody of the bureau said earlier this week that Somali pirates seem to take ships “purely for financial gain.”
Financial gain my ass. These pirates are clearing building a fleet of pirate vessels to get revenge against the French Navy.