Muscat : A cargo ship was hijacked by Somali pirates, 120 nautical miles off the coast of Oman in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday, according to the European Union Naval Force (Navfor).
"The Bermuda-flagged, British Virgin Islands-owned cargo ship MV Talca has been hijacked," said a spokesperson for the EU Navfor.
According to a report from the EU Navfor public relations department, MV TALCA was coming from Sokhna in Egypt and headed for Busheir in Iran.
"It had already passed through the International Recommended Transit Corridor, which is patrolled by warships and maritime patrol aircraft from EU Navfor, Nato, Combined Maritime Forces and other navies," said the statement sent to Gulf News by email.
Twenty-three of the crew of the hijacked ship are from Sri Lanka, one from the Philippines and one from Syria. MV Talca has dead weight of 11,055 tonnes. EU Navfor will continue to monitor the situation.
Prior to the hijacking of MV Talca, a UAE-owned and Panamanian-flagged cargo ship, MV Al Mezaan, en route to Mogadishu, was attacked by pirates off the Somali coast.
