The Indian Navy announced Friday that it had come to the aid of a ship that had made a distress call for a hijacking in the Arabian Sea and sent one of its destroyers to the site. Indian naval forces “responded quickly to a maritime incident in the Arabian Sea involving an attempted hijacking on board a Liberian-flagged bulk carrier,” they said in a statement. Five or six “unknown armed men” boarded the ship Thursday evening, the statement added. Local media reported that around 15 Indian crew members were on board the ship.
The Indian Navy did not say who was currently in control of the ship but said an aerial patrol on Friday morning ensured the safety of its crew. The INS Chennai, an Indian Navy destroyer, is also heading towards the ship to rescue it, according to the same source. In its press release, the Indian Navy reiterated its determination to “guarantee [la] security of the merchant navy in the region alongside its foreign partners and allied nations.
Attacks on maritime transport are increasing
At the end of December, India announced the deployment of three warships and a reconnaissance aircraft to the Arabian Sea after a series of attacks targeting commercial ships. A chemical tanker, the MV Chem Pluto, which was sailing under the flag of Liberia, was notably hit last month off the coast of India by a drone, fired from Iran according to the United States while Tehran denied any involvement.
The incident followed a series of drone and missile attacks carried out in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels amid the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Attacks on shipping since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7 have prompted major shipping companies to redirect their ships to the southern tip of Africa, despite higher fuel costs for far-flung voyages. longer.
The United States announced on December 18 the formation of a coalition to defend maritime traffic in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, joined by around twenty countries including France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Greece, Norway, the Netherlands and Bahrain.