Indian Ocean pirates have captured a yacht with seven Danes including three children aboard and are sailing towards Somalia, the Danish foreign ministry said Monday.
The sailboat captured on Thursday was carrying a Danish family of five and two employees, Charlotte Senter, who heads the consular division at the ministry, told the Ritzau news agency.
The children, two boys and a girl, are aged 12 to 16, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The family left on a two-year round-the-world tour that was to have ended in mid-2011, according to a neighbour who spoke to the Danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet.
"It's almost unbearable to know that children are involved, and I vigorously condemn the pirates," said Danish Foreign Minister Lene Espersen.
The Danish authorities "are following this matter very closely, and we will do all in our power to help the Danes aboard the sailboat and their relatives," she said late Monday on Danish television.
The Danish government "does not negotiate with pirates", she said, declining to comment further on the case "because that would not serve the interests of the hostages if it is too publicised and commented on".
She added: "Past experience has shown that too much information and commentary (on hostage-takings) threatens to undermine the cause" of the hostages.
"The hostage-takers also hear what is said on television in the countries the hostages come from, and the episode could be dragged out if they start to discuss the details," Espersen said.
The foreign ministry earlier said relatives of the hostages had been informed.
The B.T. daily said a Danish warship that is part of NATO's "Ocean Shield" anti-piracy operation in the region was headed towards the scene, but the Danish navy declined to comment.
Piracy has surged in recent years off Somalia, a lawless, war-torn country that sits alongside one of the world's most important shipping routes.
On February 22, Somali pirates killed four Americans including a retired couple aboard their hijacked yacht.
Four Somali pirates also died, two of them killed by US special forces in one of the deadliest endings to hostage-takings that are often resolved through ransom payments.
Hijackings are a key source of income for a country that has lacked a functioning government for two decades.
While few Americans have been caught up in such hijackings, a number of European yacht enthusiasts have been captured by Somali pirates.
In November, British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler were released after an ordeal that lasted more than a year.
Ekstra Bladet said the Danish family came from an area west of Copenhagen.
They had made stops in South America, the Caribbean, Fiji and Thailand, and had set sail two weeks earlier from the Maldives headed towards Africa.
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