NAIROBI - Somali pirates seized a Chinese cargo ship yesterday with 25 people onboard, a naval spokesman for the European Union’s antipiracy force said, the first successful attack on a Chinese vessel since the country deployed three naval warships to the region.
Commander John Harbour said that coalition forces had observed at least two pirates onboard the deck of the De Xin Hai, and the cargo ship also was towing behind it two light skiffs used by the pirates. All 25 crew onboard are Chinese, he said.
The attack occurred yesterday in the Indian Ocean about 700 miles east of the Somali coastline. Harbour said he believed it was the farthest offshore the Somalis had ever struck.
“We’re pushing them further and further afield to get targets,’’ he said, referring to a coalition of navies dedicated to fighting piracy in the region.
Roger Middleton, an analyst from Chatham House, a British think tank, said it was unlikely that the Chinese would act to endanger the lives of their crew through direct intervention. French and American navies have engaged pirates holding hostages, he said, but only when the navies believed hostages’ lives were in imminent danger.
The Chinese “probably would use a more cautious approach,’’ Middleton said. But, he added: “We’ve never seen so many Chinese citizens captured at a time when Chinese ships were in the region.’’
A previous attack on a Chinese vessel last year was repelled when the crew used homemade Molotov cocktails to fight off their attackers.
Somali pirates have recently ramped up attacks after a period of quiet during poor weather. They use sophisticated equipment and larger “mother ships’’ to enable them to strike hundreds of miles offshore. The multimillion-dollar ransoms they share are a fortune in their impoverished, war-ravaged country.
A total of 146 people, including the crew of the De Xin Hai, are being held hostage by pirates.
