NAIROBI/NEW YORK, (Reuters) – The crew of a U.S.-flagged, Danish-owned freighter hijacked by pirates off Somalia retook control of the ship yesterday but their captain was still being held hostage on a lifeboat, the shipping line and a crew member said.
The crew of 20 Americans were in control of the ship and were trying to negotiate their captain’s release while they waited for a U.S. warship to arrive, second mate Ken Quinn told CNN.
“We are just trying to offer them whatever we can, food, but it is not working too good,” Quinn told CNN. He said the four pirates were holding the captain hostage on the ship’s lifeboat.
“We have a coalition warship that will be here in three hours. We are just trying to hold them off for three more hours and then we will have a warship here to help us,” he said.
The ship’s operator, Maersk Line Ltd, confirmed that the U.S. crew had regained control of the 17,000-tonne Maersk Alabama after the pirates left the ship with one hostage.
A spokesman for the company said no injuries had been reported for the rest of the crew left aboard.
Maritime officials said the Maersk Alabama was carrying food aid for Somalia and Uganda from Djibouti to Mombasa, a Kenyan port, when it was seized far out in the Indian Ocean.
The seizure was the latest in an escalation in pirate attacks off the lawless Horn of Africa country of Somalia.
“We can confirm that our crew has control of the ship. The pirates have departed the ship and they have taken one crew member with them as a hostage,” the Maersk Line spokesman said, but could not confirm whether the hostage was the captain.
A Pentagon spokeswoman, Army Lieutenant Colonel Elizabeth Hibner, said the U.S. Navy destroyer Bainbridge was en route.
Details on how far away it was were not immediately available.
The ship seizure, about 300 miles (500 km) off Somalia, was the first time Somali pirates have seized U.S. citizens, if only briefly.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was very worried by the hijacking and called for world action to end the “scourge” of piracy.
“We are deeply concerned and we are following it very closely,” Clinton told reporters in Washington.
“Specifically, we are now focused on this particular act of piracy and the seizure of the ship that carries 21 American citizens. More generally, we think the world must come together to end the scourge of piracy.”
