Pirate ship seized

last updated 8 January 2015

Off the Somali coast

After an eight-hour chase in the Indian Ocean, a suspected pirate ship surrendered to a U.S. Navy destroyer last week, part of a stepped-up international effort to crack down on seaborne hijackings and robberies. The suspected pirates, riding a rusting, unnamed vessel, ignored several warning shots before finally going dead in the water. U.S. sailors boarded the ship and found 16 Indians and 10 Somalis, along with a small cache of weapons. Some of the men said they had been hijacked last week near Mogadishu and forced to attack commercial ships. Piracy is rampant off the coast of Somalia, which has been torn by clashes between rival militias. Collecting ransom from shipping companies has been a major source of their funding.