Pirates Pose Threat to Cruises in Gulf of Aden
The Nautica, a luxury American cruise ship with 684 passengers Nautica was sailing from Italy to the Far East in the Gulf of Aden between Somalia and Yemen when it was attacked on Monday night by pirates in two small boats. They had an AK-47 and fired about several shots, but managed to miss everything.
A Danish navy spokesman for a multinational counter-piracy task force operating in the area said the Nautica captain ordered all passengers under cover inside the ship. The captain of M/S Nautica gunned the engine and sped away a spokesman for the company said Tuesday. It would have a disaster had the pirates managed to seize the vessel, Lieutenant Commander Lynge said.
NATO foreign ministers groped for solutions at a meeting in Brussels and the United Nations extended an international piracy-fighting mandate for another year. The potential for massive ransom payments from the families of hundreds of rich tourists on a pleasure cruise may encourage similar attempts, especially following the successful capture in recent weeks of a Ukrainian cargo ship laden with tanks and a Saudi oil tanker.
Some of the world’s leading cruise companies said Tuesday they are considering changing their itineraries to avoid going near the coast of Somalia following news of the weekend attack. Cunard’s public relations manager Eric Flounders said the company has two liners, the Queen Mary 2 and Queen Victoria, scheduled to go through the Gulf of Aden sometime in March but that the company “will obviously consider changing the itinerary” should the situation not improve.
And P&O Cruises’ PR Michele Andjel said the company is considering whether to reroute the Arcadia, which is due around the Gulf of Aden sometime in January.
Karen
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