Beluga Fortune Crew Thwarts Somali Pirates From Panic Room
Sunday the German ship Beluga Fortune had been attacked and boarded by Somali pirates. The ship’s team fled to a panic room, cut the engines and shut off the power, which frustrated the buccaneers into abandoning their crime the following day. Nearly 2 decades of anarchy in Somalia has allowed piracy to thrive and 2010 has seen the highest incidence of pirate attacks since 2005.
Beluga Fortune incurs buccaneers
The Beluga Fortune was on its way from the United Arab Emirates to South Africa when Somali pirates attacked. The Associated Press accounts the pirates grabbed the ship about 1,200 miles east of Mombasa, Kenya. Reuters accounts that when the pirates fired on the vessel, the freighter’s 16-man team sent out a distress call and locked themselves in a panic room designed for protection from such an attack. From the room, the crew shut down the engines, cut off fuel and disabled the bridge.
Panic room makes pirates angry
Somali pirates are frustrated by a panic room before, in Sept throughout the seizure of the German Ship Magellan Star. American soldiers freed the ship only 22 hrs after it had been taken, reports Spiegal Online International. The crew went into a room that had been hard to find and harder to break into called a safety room. The room was stocked with food, drinks, medical equipment and supplies. The ship’s owners were in contact with the captain. A satellite phone made this possible. It also had a secret emergency exit in case they needed to abandon ship. A spokesman for the Magellan Star’s owner told Spiegal “the pirates called our shipping company in desperation, wanting to know where the crew had been.”
A snapshot of Somali piracy
Shipping off of Somalia is hard since you will find so many Somali buccaneers there. Since 1991 when Somalia’s government collapsed, there are buccaneers like these. 19 ships and 428 hostages are being held captive by the Somali pirates, accounts the European Union Naval force. Based on the Strategy Page, the Somali pirates do a lot of pirate attacks. In fact, in the past year 44 percent of pirate attacks originated from them. Just this year, 27 team members are hurt while 1 has been killed. There have been a ton of sailors kept for ransom. There were 773 in fact.
Citations
Reuters
reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69O3PB20101025
Associated Press
google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jhf_eEAne8QCbP_9nViK4DY-n1MA?docId=115bc0cbadeb42168886f496e28510be
Strategy Page
strategypage.com/htmw/htseamo/articles/20101025.aspx
Jeff-goodall
jeff-goodall.com/?p=2241
