Hijacked super-tanker taken to anchorage off Somalia

The hijacked Greek super-tanker Maran Centaurus anchored yesterday off the village of Hobyo in northern Somalia, a Kenyan maritime official has said.The vessel was seized near the Seychelles on Sunday with its 28 crew members, becoming the second super-sized tanker to be captured by rampaging Somali pirates in 13 months.“Maran Centaurus dropped anchor in Hobyo this morning,” said Andrew Mwangura of the Seafarers Assistance Programme. “The crew is reported to be safe.”The pirates are yet to make ransom demands for the huge vessel with a crew of 16 Filipinos, nine Greeks, two Ukrainians and a Romanian.It was hijacked while on its way from Saudi Arabia to the US, fully-laden with oil.On Monday, the Athens-based owners, Maran Tankers Management, said no contact had been made with the ship since its seizure.Hobyo is one of the three main pirate dens in the north of the lawless Horn of Africa country.Mwangura said pirates are currently holding 12 ships and 295 sailors. The majority were seized since early October at the end of the monsoon season.The Maran Centaurus is the second oil tanker captured by the pirates, following the hijacking of the Sirius Star in November last year with a cargo estimated to be worth around $100mn. It was released in January after the payment of a ransom.Meanwhile, the UN envoy for Somalia yesterday called on Japan and the international community to help bring the financial backers of Somali pirates to justice.Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN special representative for the war-torn African nation, said piracy had become a business venture for criminal organizations and urged governments to go after the pirates’ bosses.“A very limited number of people are financing and benefiting from piracy. It is something we cannot neglect,” he told reporters in Tokyo.“Impunity is one of the causes” encouraging the piracy, he said.However, he declined to name any suspected backers, saying he only had “strong suspicions” but no evidence. Ould-Abdallah also reiterated calls from the UN to stop paying ransom payments for the release of hijacked ships.Ould-Abdallah lamented what he said was a lack of international commitment to the crisis in Somalia, saying ordinary Somalis were being held hostage by a criminal minority. “We should be there to liberate the hostage,” he said.The UN Security Council earlier this week renewed authorization for measures to combat piracy off Somalia’s coast. The measures include allowing foreign nations to send warships into Somalia’s territorial waters for a year.Meanwhile, the head of the African Union’s troubled Somalia peacekeeping force yesterday expressed frustration at the failure of countries to honour troop commitments.Speaking in Uganda, one of only two nations to have contributed troops to the AMISOM force, Wafula Wamunyinyi said the threat posed by Islamist insurgents had been exaggerated, scaring off countries from deployments.“We feel really frustrated and let down that several African nations have not honoured their commitment to send troops, but the media have made it difficult for them to deploy,” said Wamunyinyi, AMISOM’s acting chief.“And nobody seems to appreciate the AMISOM has accomplished a lot,” he said at the press conference in Kampala where military chiefs and other AU officials are meeting on ways to boost the force.AMISOM, which was first deployed to the lawless Horn of Africa nation in March 2007, currently comprises some 5,000 Burundian and Ugandan troops, well short of the intended target of 8,000.Nigeria has said on several occasions that it had troops ready to deploy, but has not so far sent any. Ghana and Malawi committed to sending troops just after the force was deployed while Rwanda has also said it would send troops.At least 60 peacekeepers have been killed in relentless attacks by the Islamist insurgents since they deployed.The Al-Qaeda-inspired Shebaab movement, which has carried out the bulk of the attacks since a group of Islamists was forced out of Mogadishu in December 2006, were recently joined in their insurgency by the Hezb al-Islam militia.http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=329738&version=1&template_id=39&parent_id=21