Pirate activity in the Gulf of Aden is reaching historic levels. Gangs of pirates off the Somali coast have made numerous attacks of commercial vessels entering/exiting the Suez canal. Everything from Oil tankers, Cruise ships, and Container ships have been attacked this year.
Ships are usually boarded by gangs in short-range speedboats armed with semiautomatic rifles and grenade launchers. Once boarded, the ship is hijacked to a Somali port where ransom negotiations for the ship & crew proceed. The cargo is most often pilfered away & sold.
An interesting news flash has come from the Times of South Africa about the hijacking of an Iranian freighter carrying Military equipment from China.
More under the fold...
The ship, the Iran Dyanat, was hijacked by a gang of 40 pirates in speedboats on August 21st. The ship was taken to the port of Eyl off the coast of Somalia. There it was secured by an additional 50 pirates, all members of a crime syndicate responsible for multiple hijackings.
But within days of securing the ship, those who boarded and inspected the cargo developed strange health problems. From the Long War Journal:
The MV Iran Deyanat was brought to Eyl, a sleepy fishing village in northeastern Somalia, and was secured by a larger gang of pirates - 50 onboard and 50 onshore. Within days, pirates who had boarded the ship developed strange health complications, skin burns and loss of hair. Independent sources tell The Long War Journal that a number of pirates have also died. "Yes, some of them have died. I do not know exactly how many but the information that I am getting is that some of them have died," Andrew Mwangura, Director of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Program, said Friday when reached by phone in Mombasa.
News about the illness and the toxic cargo quickly reached Garowe, seat of the government for the autonomous region of Puntland. Angered over the wave of piracy and suspicious about the Iranian ship, authorities dispatched a delegation led by Minister of Minerals and Oil Hassan Allore Osman to investigate the situation on September 4. Osman also confirmed to The Long War Journal that during the six days he negotiated with the pirates members of the syndicate had become sick and died. "That ship is unusual," he said. "It is not carrying a normal shipment."
The delegation faced a tense situation in Eyl, Osman recounts. The syndicate had demanded a $9 million ransom for 10 ships that were in its possession and refused permission to inspect the Iranian vessel. At one point, he said, the pirates threatened to "blow up" the MV Iran Deyanat if authorities tried to inspect it with force. A committee of delegate members and Eyl city officials was formed to negotiate directly with the pirates in order to defuse the situation.
Once in direct contact, the pirates told Osman that they had attempted to inspect the ship's seven cargo containers after they developed health complications but the containers were locked. The crew claimed that they did not have the "access codes" and could not open them. The delegation secured contact with the captain and the engineer by cell phone and demanded to know the nature of the cargo, however, Osman says that "they were saying different things to different people." Initially they said that the cargo contained "crude oil" but then claimed it contained "minerals."
The symptoms described seem to be associated more with radiation poisoning than chemical exposure.
Could it be that China is providing processed Uranium to Iran?