FILE PHOTO: General Cargo PEGASUS 01 vessel offloads cargo at the Port of Bosaso, in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, Somalia January 28, 2024. REUTERS/Abdirahman Hussein/FILE PHOTO
A week later, the Abdullah is anchored off the coast of Somalia, the latest victim of a resurgence of piracy that international navies thought they had brought under control. "They took this chance because the international naval forces that operate off the coast of Somalia reduced their operations," said a pirate financier who goes by the alias Ismail Isse and said he helped fund the hijacking of another bulk carrier in December.
Over the weekend, the Indian Navy intercepted and freed the Ruen, which was sailing under Malta's flag, after it ventured back out to sea. The European Union's anti-piracy mission, EUNAVFOR Atalanta, said the pirates may have used the ship as a launchpad to attack the Abdullah. A Bangladeshi foreign ministry official, however, told Reuters the government was"not in favour of any kind of military action" to free the Abdullah. The official, who asked not to be named to discuss a sensitive matter, cited the pirates' advantages when operating close to the Somali coast.The waterways off Somalia include some of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
Their raids have extended the area in which insurers impose additional war risk premiums on ships. Those premiums are getting more expensive for voyages through the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea, adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to the price tag for a typical seven-day voyage, insurance industry officials said.
A spokesperson for NAVIBULGAR, the Bulgarian company that manages the ship, said it could not comment on ransom negotiations but was grateful to the Indian Navy for freeing its seamen.