The Indian navy has freed the hijacked ship MV Ruen and detained 35 Somali pirates, Ahmed Yassin Saleh, minister for ports and maritime transport in Somalia’s semi-autonomous area of Puntland instructed Reuters on Saturday.
“The Indian Navy efficiently performed the operation which has been happening since final night time. The navy captured 35 pirates and launched the MV Ruen Ship and its crew are protected,” Saleh instructed Reuters.
Indian naval forces together with particular commandos seized the cargo vessel that had been hijacked by Somali pirates, rescuing 17 crew members, a spokesperson for the navy mentioned on Saturday.
The navy mentioned in a submit on social media platform X that every one 35 pirates aboard the ship, the Maltese-flagged bulk cargo vessel Ruen, had surrendered, and the ship had been checked for the presence of unlawful arms, ammunition and contraband.
The Ruen had been hijacked final 12 months and the navy mentioned it had intercepted the vessel on Friday.
The vessel could have been used as the bottom for the takeover of a Bangladesh-flagged cargo ship off the coast of Somalia earlier this week, the European Union naval drive mentioned.
The hijacking of the Ruen was the primary profitable takeover of a vessel involving Somali pirates since 2017 when a crackdown by worldwide navies stopped a rash of seizures within the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
Somali pirates had brought about chaos in necessary international waterways for a decade however had been dormant till a resurgence of assaults beginning late final 12 months.
India deploys a minimum of a dozen warships east of the Crimson Sea to offer safety towards pirates as Western powers deal with assaults by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis.
At the least 17 incidents of hijacking, tried hijacking and suspicious approaches had been recorded by the Indian Navy since Dec. 1, Indian officers beforehand mentioned.
