Somali pirates threat force cruise ship evacuation

[December 09, 2008]  BERLIN (AP) -- A cruise ship will evacuate passengers before sailing through waters off the Somali coast and fly them to the next port of call to protect them from possible pirate attacks, German cruise operator Hapag-Lloyd said Tuesday.

An official with the European Union's anti-piracy mission said separately that the force would station armed guards on vulnerable cargo ships in the Gulf of Aden.

The MS Columbus cruise ship will drop off its 246 passengers before the ship and some of its crew sail through the Gulf on Wednesday, the Hamburg-based company said in a statement, without saying exactly where they would disembark. It said the passengers would take a charter flight Wednesday to Dubai and spend three days at a five-star hotel waiting to rejoin the 150-meter (490-foot) vessel in the southern Oman port of Salalah for the remainder of a round-the-world tour that began in Italy.

The company said it was sending its passengers on the detour as a "precautionary measure," given rampant piracy off the coast of lawless Somalia that recently has targeted cruise ships as well as commercial vessels, including a Saudi oil tanker and a Ukrainian ship carrying tanks and other weapons.

Last week, pirates fired upon the M/S Nautica, a cruise liner carrying 650 passengers and 400 crew members, but the massive ship quickly outran its assailants. Other ships have not been so lucky. Pirates have attacked 32 vessels and hijacked 12 of them since NATO deployed a four-vessel flotilla on Oct. 24 to escort cargo ships and conduct anti-piracy patrols.

An EU anti-piracy mission -- which takes over for the NATO ships on Monday -- may also involve stationing armed guards on the most vulnerable cargo ships in high-risk areas, the British naval commander in charge of the EU mission said Tuesday.

British Vice-Admiral Philip Jones said the guards could be placed on some ships transporting food aid to Somalia. The EU mission will also includes four ships and two maritime reconnaissance aircraft.

In addition to the EU vessels, about a dozen other warships from the U.S. 5th Fleet based in Bahrain, as well as from India, Russia and Malaysia and other nations are patrolling in the area.

The Russian navy will soon replace its warship in the region with another from a different fleet, navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said Tuesday in Moscow.

The missile frigate Neustrashimy, or Intrepid -- deployed from Russia's Northern Fleet after pirates seized the Ukrainian ship carrying tanks in September -- has escorted freighters through the Gulf and helped thwart at least two pirate attacks, the navy said.

The Intrepid will remain in the region through December and be replaced by a ship from Russia's Pacific Fleet.

[Associated Press; By PATRICK McGROARTY]

Associated Press writer Slobodan Lekic contributed to this report from Brussels, Belgium.

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