Kenya and Egypt are calling for action against Somali pirates operating in the Gulf of Aden while the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) reports that 77 incidents involving sea robbers have been reported since January in that sea way.

The most recent were three last week on Tuesday and one on Wednesday.

On Wednesday last week pirates armed with automatic weapons aboard two speedboats opened fire on a bulk carrier underway. “The pirates boarded and hijacked the vessel and took the 20 crew as hostage. They then sailed the vessel to an undisclosed location in Somalia. The vessel was carrying a cargo of iron ore pellets from Pointe Noire, Canada to Rizhao, China when it was hijacked,” the IMB web site says of the incident.

Pirates fired on ships with small arms in all three incidents reported on Tuesday. In the first incident, at 8am, pirates on speedboats fired at a tanker and attempted to board. The ship took evasive action, transmitted mayday messages and sounded the foghorn. The pirates moved off after 10 minutes.

Read more at: DefenceWeb

Two vessels, an Iranian bulk carrier and a Japanese-operated tanker, have been seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said on Thursday.

"Both ships were attacked and hijacked this morning [Thursday]," said Noel Chong, head of the IMB piracy reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur.

The Japanese tanker had 19 crew on board, but no Japanese nationals, Chong said.

Thursday's seizures came after a Malaysian oil tanker, with 39 crew on board and laden with palm oil, was hijacked on Wednesday in the Gulf of Aden.

Piracy is rife off Somalia, which has been mired in anarchy since warlords overthrew a dictator in 1991.

Last week, pirates from Somalia hijacked two ships -- a Thai cargo ship, the MV Thor Star, and a Nigerian tug boat, the MT Yenegoa Ocean.

Somali pirates are still holding a Japanese-managed bulk vessel, the MV Stella Maris, which was hijacked on July 20.

Source: Mail & Guardian Online

Johannesburg - South Africa will not contribute troops to an African peacekeeping force in Somalia, but will study other ways to help to stabilise the war-ravaged country, says a defence ministry spokesperson.

Spokesperson Sam Mkhwanazi said Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota made the decision after reviewing SA's overseas peacekeeping commitments, which included forces in Burundi, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as smaller missions in Ivory Coast and Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Mkhwanazi said: "SA supports the African Union deployment of peacekeepers, but South Africa, having contributed to the AU and the United Nations other missions, is currently stretched.

"It would not be in the interests of either the UN, the AU and other missions, where SA is involved if the country were to send troops to Somalia."

Read more at: news24.com