China will send warships to fight piracy in Somali waters

Beijing: China will send warships to the Gulf of Aden to help international efforts to fight piracy there, the Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

Nato ships began anti-piracy operations off the Somali coast in late October, but they have failed to stop the rampant hijackings, and other nations are now pitching in.

"China is making active preparations and the related deployments to send warships to the Gulf of Aden," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news briefing, though he declined to give details.

A multilateral force rescued the Chinese ship, Zhenhua 4, from Somali pirates on Wednesday.

The crew of a Chinese ship fought Somali pirates with bottles and water cannons before they were rescued, they said on Thursday.

"Seven of the nine pirates landed on our ship, all with weapons," Peng Weiyuan, the captain of Zhenhua 4, said in a telephone interview with China Central Television.

"Our crew, who had been well trained and prepared, used water cannon, self-made incendiary bombs, beer bottles and anything else that could be used to battle with them. Thirty minutes later, the pirates gestured to us for a ceasefire.
"Then the helicopter from the joint fleet came to help us."

A Kenyan maritime group said a warship and two helicopters came and fired on the pirates, but did not kill them after the crew sent out a distress call.

Chinese Global Times newspaper said China would send two destroyers and a large-sized depot ship to Somalia to prevent further attacks, but the report could not be independently confirmed.

The ship was one of four vessels seized by pirates on Tuesday, the same day the UN Security Council took a strong stand against the attacks and authorised countries to pursue the gunmen on land.