Dec 19 2008
Shocking images from a pirated Chinese vessel
Now as many of you readers know I am a journalist. Sometimes there’s a story so juicy, so shocking, so bizarre that you just can’t pass it up. This is one of those stories.
The Chinese vessel Zhenhua 4 was attacked and boarded by pirates on Tuesday in the Gulf of Aden. Luckily no one on the crew was harmed and today the captain of the ship, Peng Weiyuan, told how his crew held off the pirates armed with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns.
The multinational crew of 30 men ended with the arrival of military helicopters and a warship dispatched by the task force fighting the piracy menace in the region, but not before engaging in a high seas battle with home-made weapons.
“Seven of the nine pirates landed on our ship, all with weapons,” said Weiyuan, speaking to China Central Television.
“Our crew, who had been well trained and prepared, used water cannon, self-made incendiary bombs [Molotov cocktails or petrol bombs], beer bottles and anything else that could be used to battle with them. Thirty minutes later, the pirates gestured to us for a ceasefire.”
“Then the helicopter from the joint fleet came to help us.”
Photos courtesy of AP.
While the tale of this crew is a valiant one, the issue of dealing with these pirates is still very much up in the air. Rampant piracy off the coast of Somalia this year has earned gunmen millions of dollars in ransoms, forced up the cost of shipping insurance costs and caused international alarm.
According to Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers Assistance programme, there have been 124 incidents of piracy off Somali this year and some 60 successful hijacks.
Nearly 400 people and 19 ships are being held along the coast, including a Saudi supertanker with two million barrels of oil and a Ukrainian cargo ship carrying 33 tanks.
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Your no revolutionary….
@David Rude - Tell my mother that… I’m a journalist in search of the truth. Whatever people wish to do with it after that is out of my hands…
Sounds like an average street fight, but only on the water. I covered a similar story last week and it amazes me at how barbaric some can still be! I am also an accountant and studied doing business in other countries, and one can pay a pretty high price or bribe for doing business in those countries. Many times sadly enough its to their government. (A different type of pirate)
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