Cruise ship passenger recount pirate ordeal

ArticleData Array ( [Article] => Array ( [article_id] => 1001410 [headline] => Cruise ship passenger recount pirate ordeal [abstract] => Passengers aboard a cruiser that was attacked by pirates have spoken of the ordeal, amid reports of a fresh attack on a vessel carrying Australians. [keywords] => cruise liner, pirates, hotspot, Australians, attack, gunfire [content] =>

Passengers aboard a luxury cruise liner have given graphic accounts of a pirate attack in the Gulf of Aden, while reports emerged of a fresh attack on a another liner carrying Australians.

The Daily Telegraph reported on its website that the MV Athena, carrying nearly 400 Australians, was surrounded by "more than 29 pirate boats" off the coast of Somalia.

Passengers told how the small boasts surrounded the ship and pirates made attempts to board the vessel but they were "scared off" by the military, the Telegraph reported.


'We heard gunfire'
   
Meanwhile passengers from another vessel, the Oceania Nautica, now in Oman, spoke of their pirate ordeal.

The Oceania Nautica with 684 passengers aboard, including 50 Australians and some New Zealanders, came under fire on Sunday in notoriously dangerous waters between Yemen and Somalia.

The pirates were aboard two small boats fitted with outboard motors.
   
"We didn't think they would be cheeky enough to attack a cruise ship," Wendy Armitage, of Wellington, New Zealand, told The Associated Press shortly after disembarking at a port stop in the Omani capital of Muscat on Wednesday.
   
"It was very minor really," she said of the attack that lasted about five minutes.
   
"But it was a surprise that they attacked us, and they did fire shots."

The captain ordered passengers inside and accelerated the cruise liner and outran the six-to nine-metre speedboats.

"I couldn't see them shooting, but I heard them hitting the ship, 'pop, pop, pop,"' said Clyde Thornberg from Oregon, in the US.

"It wasn't really scary because the captain announced for the safety of everybody to get inside and get down.

"And by that time he was pouring on the coals to the ship and was outrunning them."

Cruise liner outran pirates

The cruise ship company, Oceania Cruises, said Captain Jurica Brajcic and his officers took evasive action after two small skiffs were sighted and deemed potentially hostile.
   
"The skiffs, approaching from a range of approximately 1000 metres attempted to intercept the vessel's course," the company said in a statement.
   
"Nautica was immediately brought to flank speed and was able to outrun the two skiffs.

"One of the skiffs did manage to close the range to approximately 300 yards and fired eight rifle shots in the direction of the vessel before trailing off."
   
This statement differed from an earlier account by the Danish navy, which said an international taskforce had foiled the hijack attempt.

Danish, French navy assisted

On Monday, Agence France-Presse reported that a spokesman for the Danish navy, the current lead nation in the NATO taskforce, confirmed the operation had stopped a group of pirates from boarding the civilian vessel.
   
"The (Danish) navy's tactical command on Sunday led a military operation, dispatching a vessel from the coalition to the aid of a civilian ship threatened by pirates, thereby preventing an act of piracy," Danish navy spokesman Jesper Lynge told AFP.

Lynge said it was up to the countries involved to give details of the cruise ship involved.

But according to Danish TV2 News, six to eight armed pirates on two speed boats were observed speeding toward the Nautica, which had set sail from Florida.

A French navy warship, alerted by the Danish Navy, scrambled a helicopter to the scene, which sent the pirates fleeing, TV2 News said.
   
No one aboard Nautica was harmed and no damage was sustained, Oceania Cruises said in the statement.

Piracy hot spot

Sunday's assault was not the first time a cruise liner has been attacked.

In 2005, pirates opened fire on the Seabourn Spirit about 160 kilometres off the Somali coast.

The faster cruise ship managed to escape and used a long-range acoustic device - which blasts a painful wave of sound - to distract the pirates.
   
Several passengers on the Nautica said the ship's crew used a similar device to ward off Sunday's attack.

The passengers had been briefed before the cruise got under way about potential dangers and on the acoustic device's importance to the vessel's defence.

"We had been reassured that they had these ghetto blasters that would go through them," said Lynne Pincini, of Australia.

"Also, they said we could outrun anything."

International warships patrol the area and have set up a security corridor in the region under a US-led initiative, but attacks on shipping have not abated.
   
In about 100 attacks on ships off the Somali coast this year, 40 vessels have been hijacked.

Thirteen vessels remain in the hands of pirates along with more than 250 crew members, including a Saudi supertanker filled with $US100 million worth of crude and a Ukrainian ship loaded with 33 battle tanks.
 

[start_date] => 04 December 2008 | 07:33:43 AM [comments_allowed] => 1 [source] => Agencies [commentCount] => 0 [video] => [image] => Array ( [caption] => Oceania Nautica, the cruise liner that pirates attempted to attack off the coast of Somalia. [useRegularImage] => 1 [media_library_id] => 52742 [site_id] => 1 [media_library_group_id] => 0 [media_usage_id] => 0 [filename] => site_1_rand_1489468793_nautica_pirate_attack_0212_googleimages.jpg [title] => nautica_pirate_attack_0212_googleimages_1489468793 [description] => file:site_1_rand_1489468793_nautica_pirate_attack_0212_googleimages.jpg [type] => [height] => 338 [width] => 450 [source] => [video_hi] => [video_lo] => [section] => [display_order] => 0 [create_date] => 2008-12-02 10:18:46 [active] => 1 [media_usage] => Article Large [usageWidth] => 300 [usageHeight] => 225 ) [imagePath] => http://media.sbs.com.au/news/upload_media/ [audio] => [reporter] => [relatedLinks] => Array ( [0] => Array ( [id] => 1001416 [label] => 'We're not afraid to fire on pirates' [display_order] => 2 [type] => Article ) [1] => Array ( [id] => 1001413 [label] => Pirates free ship, hold Saudi tanker [display_order] => 3 [type] => Article ) [2] => Array ( [id] => 1001221 [label] => Pirates fire on cruiser carrying 50 Aussies [display_order] => 4 [type] => Article ) ) [relatedArticles] => Array ( [0] => Array ( [article_id] => 1001416 [headline] => 'We're not afraid to fire on pirates' [abstract] => The commander of a Dutch naval ship escorting humanitarian aid to Somalia says he's not afraid to open fire to keep his cargo safe.
[content] =>

The commander of a Dutch naval ship escorting humanitarian aid to Somalia has a five-step plan to keep pirates away - and he's not afraid to open fire if that will keep his cargo safe.
   
Cmdr. Peter Reesnik of the Ruyter warship has a mission to protect 7,000 tons of food heading to Somalia. Rampant piracy and attacks upon aid workers have left the impoverished Horn of Africa nation in dire need of humanitarian aid.

"If I have to, I'll destroy the (pirates') ship," Reesnik told The Associated Press, speaking board his four-deck ship as it ploughed through the Indian Ocean and Dutch troops test-fired machine guns into sea.
   
"We will try to scare them away, we will try to call them on different radio circuits, if that doesn't help we will shoot some flares," Reesnik explained.
   
"If that doesn't help we will try a shot over the bow first, and if that doesn't work, then we will start to aim and fire directly," he declared.

The warship is escorting the Ibn Batouta, which is carrying the food aid to Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.

Kim Fredriksson, a senior shipping officer at U.N.'s World Food Program, said the agency has delivered 50,000 tons of food aid to Somalia by ship in the last month. He estimated it took about 10 ships to deliver the food.
   
The Ruyter and the WFP vessel both set off from the Kenyan port of Mombasa, but the Dutch warship will anchor out at sea off the Somali coast as smaller skiffs escort the food to Mogadishu.

Somalia has been without an effective government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a dictatorship and then turned on one another. The lawlessness has allowed piracy to flourish off the coast, with bandits in speed boats launching attacks on foreign shipping, bringing in about $30 million in ransoms this year alone.

The country is also battling a ferocious Islamic insurgency. Civilians have taken the brunt of the violence surrounding the insurgency, with thousands killed or maimed by mortar shells, machine-gun crossfire and grenades.
   
The United Nations says there are around 300,000 acutely malnourished children in Somalia, but attacks and kidnappings of aid workers have shut down many humanitarian projects.

The United States fears that Somalia could be a terrorist breeding ground, and accuses an Islamic faction known as al-Shabab of harbouring the al-Qaida-linked terrorists who allegedly blew up the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
 

[content_type_id] => 3 [site_name] => World News Australia [articledate] => 4 December 2008 [articletime] => 4 December 2008 [display_order] => 2 ) [1] => Array ( [article_id] => 1001221 [headline] => Pirates fire on cruiser carrying 50 Aussies [abstract] => Pirates fired on a cruise ship carrying up to 50 Australians but were chased away by NATO forces.
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Pirates have fired on a luxury cruise ship carrying reportedly carrying up to 50 Australians in the Middle East, but their attempted hijack was foiled by an international taskforce.

A helicopter sent by the French warship frightened the pirates off. Denmark, which currently controls NATO forces in the area, alerted the French navy after six to eight armed pirates were seen speeding towards the civilian cruiseliner on two boats.

"The (Danish) navy's tactical command on Sunday led a military operation, dispatching a vessel from the coalition to the aid of a civilian ship threatened by pirates, thereby preventing an act of piracy," Danish navy spokesman Jesper Lynge said.

Tim Rubacky of Oceania Cruises said he could not comment on whether the ship had weapons on board to deal with attempted attacks. The company’s liners pass through the notoriously pirate-infested waters between Yemen and Somalia twice a year, he said.

A Saudi oil tanker carrying 25 crew was successfully nabbed by Somali pirates earlier this month, and has not yet been released.

The 330-metre Sirius Star was carrying two million barrels of crude oil when it was seized on November 15, and its attackers set a November 30 deadline for the owners of the vessel to pay $38.26 million dollars in ransom.

"We are no longer giving any ultimatum, but we will continue to be open for negotiations," Mohamed Said, the leader of the group holding the ship, told AFP.

"The owners of the tanker must engage with the right people,” he added.

"Any kind of negotiations with a third party will be futile and will not end the hostage crisis," the pirate leader said, adding: "Our aim is not to hurt the crew members or damage the ship."

Said told AFP on Monday: "We are being informed that the owners of the tanker were discussing the matter of the release with the powerless Somali government, which does not represent us. Anybody who wants a solution must talk to us."

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was quoted in a Saudi newspaper on Monday as saying that the tanker would be freed without a ransom.

"It is not true that the hijackers have demanded a ransom of millions of dollars to release it," he told the Saudi newspaper Okaz.

"We are confident that efforts made by tribal leaders and government officials will result soon in releasing the ship without any ransom."

Yusuf's beleaguered government controls only a few parts of Somalia and has not made any attempt to crack down on piracy, which has thrived in recent months and injected millions of dollars in the coastal economy.

The presence of foreign navies is intended to restore confidence among shipping companies, many of whom are now re-routing to sail around the Cape of Good Hope on the southern tip of Africa.

Increased piracy has caused insurance premiums in the shipping industry to increase, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Russian Navy said on Monday that one of its frigates Neustrashimy (Fearless) had escorted three vessels through the Horn of Africa on Monday.

The announcement came after Somali pirates said that a deal for the release of an arms-laden Ukrainian cargo ship that they seized more than two months ago has been reached and that the release was expected within days.

Meanwhile the Japanese Shipowners' Association said on Monday the country's shipping industry would incur more than 100 million dollars in extra costs if its vessels change their routes to avoid Somalia's pirate-infested waters.

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