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Pirates capture Saudi oil tanker

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Monday, November 17, 2008

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Pirates have seized control of the Sirius Star, a Saudi-owned oil tanker off the coast of Kenya and are steering her towards Somalia, reports the US Navy. The ship was captured roughly 830 kilometers south-east of Mombasa and is reportedly heading towards the Somali port of Eyl.

AbQaig, an oil tanker of similar capacity as the Sirius Star.

The oil tanker was carrying over 2 million barrels of oil at the time of her capture, and was on her way to the United States via Cape Town. Reuters claimed that news of the attack raised crude oil prices around the world.

Vela International Marine, the ship's owner, has said the Sirius Star is fully loaded. The oil could be worth up to US$100 million. The US Navy reports that all 25 crew from the United Kingdom, Croatia, the Philippines, Poland, and Saudi Arabia are 'safe'.

The area off the East coast of Africa has seen a significant amount of piracy. In 2007, one-third of the world's piracy incidents occurred in this region.

Hijacking off the coast of Somalia has become increasingly common over the last decade. Over the last year multiple countries have expressed concern or committed their navies to dealing with Somali pirates. Most recently, South Korea has announced intentions to send one of its destroyers after five South Koreans were kidnapped in a Japanese cargo ship hijacking.

The Sirius Star is the largest ship captured by pirates in the area to date. This also sets a record for the farthest from the shore that pirates have struck.


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This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License
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