Somali Pirates Attack Indonesian Boat

Thursday, 18 December, 2008 | 18:24 WIB

 

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: A group of Somali pirates attacked an Indonesian tugboat yesterday off the Yemeni coast. The group also held 11 of the boat crew – mostly Indonesian nationals - as hostages.

 

Foreign Affairs spokesperson Teuku Faizasyah said the Foreign Affairs Department had asked the Indonesian Embassy in Yemen for confirmation regarding the attack.

 

“There are two versions of the story. One report claimed said the boat carried a French flag. The other said it was Malaysian,” Teuku Faizasyah told Tempo.

 

According to Faizasyah, Indonesian officials in Yemen confirmed the attack by pirates over Yemeni waters, but the boat concerned carried a Malaysian flag. The Foreign Affairs Department, he said, will prepare immediate steps to take once the investigation is completed. “We will immediately contact the boat owner and the local government or security authorities,” Faizasyah said.

 

The French wire-service news system AFP, reported that the pirated tugboat carried a Malaysian flag, which was ambushed at the same time as a Turkish cargo container.

 

According to Noel Choong, chief of International Maritime Bureau, a sea-piracy reporting center based in Kuala Lumpur, the pirates who were armed with rocket grenades and automatic weapons attacked the Malaysian tugboat last Tuesday. The boat carrying 11 crew was en route to Malaysia from the Middle East.

 

Meanwhile, the US News wire-service, AP, did not confirm which flag the tugboat was carrying. It only quoted the comment by an officer at Total SA in Yemen, a French oil company that rented the tugboat, that the boat was carrying an Indonesian crew as well as citizens from other countries.

 

A Total spokesman in Paris, Kevin Church, also confirmed the sea pirate attack, however he stressed that the tugboat did not belong to Total.

 

REH ATEMALEM SUSANTI | AFP | AP | IWANK