Sri Lankan Trawler Rescued from Somali Pirates

COLOMBO, Jan 29 (Reuters) – Six crew members of a Sri Lankan fishing trawler hijacked by suspected Somali pirates have been rescued, Sri Lankan officials said on Monday.

The hijacking on Sunday was the latest in a series of attacks that have fuelled fears of a resurgence of Somali piracy in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea waters after years without a successful raid.

Pirates who caused chaos in the key waterways from 2008 to 2018 appear to be taking advantage of disorder caused by attacks on shipping by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group.

Authorities were informed of the incident by a second boat travelling with the trawler on Sunday and the coast guard from the Seychelles responded, said Sri Lankan navy spokesperson, Gayan Wickramasuriya.

“After a special operation, the trawler and all its crew were rescued and three suspected Somali pirates were also detained,” he said.

The rescue occurred about 230 nautical miles from Seychelles’ Mahe Island, Wickramasuriya said. 

The Maltese-flagged MV Ruen has been held for a month-and-a-half near the Somali coast in the first hijacking of a merchant ship by Somali pirates since 2017. 

On Saturday, a security team on a bulk carrier 780 nautical miles of Somalia’s coast exchanged fire with armed individuals on a skiff after it came suspiciously close to the vessel, British maritime monitors said. 

(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe; writing by George Obulutsa in Nairobi; Editing by Aaron Ross and Ros Russell)

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