Source: BIN, Contributed by Somali Marine & Coastal Monitor
It appears that the EU NAVFOR command deliberately withheld the confirmation of a sea-jacking of three Thai IUU fishing vessels by Somali pirates. The reason might well be that it concerns a politically sensitive and legally complicated issue: “pirates taking illegal fishermen as prisoners for ransomâ€.
The EU Naval Force confirmed only yesterday, Tuesday, that suspected Somali pirates hijacked three Thailand-flagged fishing vessels, which were reported already two days ago on 18 April as captured with a total crew of 77 Thai sailors in the Indian Ocean nearly 2,000km off Somalia – their farthest offshore attack to date.
“This was in the Indian Ocean, but far away from the east coast of Africa…This is the farthest hijacking to date. They are now operating near the Maldives and India,†said Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Program.
"The vessel group was fishing off on 18 April as captured with a total crew of 77 Thai sailors in the Indian Ocean and we try to establish if they had a licence to fish there, since it is strange for fishing vessels operating out of Djibouti to fish in the Maldives," said an analyst working with ECOTERRA International. "However," he added "the families of seafarers deserve to be informed as soon these cases become known to those whose duty it is to know and not only after delayed media releases hit the wires."
While the EU naval conglomerate now even reports sea-jacked tugboats off Malaysia, they only today confirmed the capture of the Thai vessel group with the headline: "Pirates head east". Is that a hint that the new global Armada wants to expand into that direction?
The three vessels - confirmed by EU NAVFOR as Prantalay No. 11, 12 and 14 - are owned and operated by P.T. INTERFISHERY CO., LTD. from SAMUTSAKORN, Thailand. The fleet consists of two hunters and one larger factory cum carrier vessel, which together were going after the highly priced but in population declining pelagic yellowfin tuna and similar species.
The vast majority of Thai people do not eat these fish and the fishing operations are pure commercial exploitation operations.
None of these three vessels is licensed by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) to fish in these waters. While the owner-company has with Prantalay No. 1 and Prantalay No. 2 two longliners registered and authorized by the IOTC, no other vessel of the Prantalay fleet is authorized to fish in the Indian Ocean.