Rescue efforts under way for Chinese ship sea-jacked by Somali shifta

The capture of the panamax MV DE XIN HAI is the first successful attack on a Chinese vessel since the country deployed three naval warships to the region.

Commander John Harbour, the spokesperson of EU NAVFOR, meanwhile clarified that the Chinese news agency Xinhua and CNN had misquoted him and he had not said that there were 146 people on board of that vessel. He said, he had spoken of 146 seafarers in total being held hostage now in the Somali context (which is correct) with the 25 of MV DE XIN HAI included. All 25 crew onboard are Chinese, he said and added: "I know that the UK Maritime Trade Office has spoken to the owner of the ship, to confirm the figure and they are trying to get in touch with the pirates, at the moment to see what their next intentions are. As far as I am aware the ship is heading to the northwest, which would be towards the Somali coast." .

"The vessel was last reported heading west toward the Somali coast," Harbour said.

The 225m-long De Xin Hai with a gross tonnage of 40,892 tons is operated by Cosco Quindao and carrying coal. The ship was en route from South Africa to India. The vessel is insured by UK P&I Club, but the crew is not covered by an ITF agreement.

Qingdao Ocean Shipping Co. Ltd, the owners of the vessel and China's biggest shipping company, reported the incident to the China Maritime Search and Rescue Centre at 3:50 pm Beijing time (0750 GMT) was revealed.

China's Ministry of Transport said relevant government agencies were making efforts to rescue a hijacked Chinese bulk carrier in the Indian Ocean, state media reported late Monday. It was not clear which rescue measures would be taken while several analysts warned that a military attack could have desasterous results.

Also analyst Roger Middleton from British thinktank Chatham House said later in an interview with AP that it was unlikely that the Chinese would want to endanger the lives of their crew through direct intervention. French and American navies have both engaged pirates holding hostages, he said, but only when the navies believed the hostages’ lives were in imminent danger.

The Chinese "probably would use a more cautious approach," Middleton said. But, he added: "We’ve never seen so many Chinese citizens captured at a time when Chinese ships were in the region."

A previous attack on a Chinese vessel last year was repelled when the crew used home-made Molotov cocktails to fight off the pirates.

The Zhenhua 4 of Shanghai-based Zhenhua Port Machinery Co was one of four vessels seized by pirates on December 17, the same day the United Nations Security Council took a strong stand against the attacks and authorized countries to pursue the gunmen on land - a resolution which since has been disputed on legal grounds.

Nine pirates armed with rocket launchers and heavy machine guns boarded that Chinese ship. The 30 crew members locked themselves in their quarters and used fire hoses and firebombs to prevent the attackers from entering.

The crew fought off the pirates with the help of foreign naval ships patrolling nearby.

The 30 crew members were later awarded US$10,000 each by their company for their brave response.

The hijack occurred just hours after China said it was "seriously considering sending naval ships" to the region.

A Chinese navy fleet with two destroyers and a supply vessel started patrolling the hijack-infested waters off Somalia in January.

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