The Indian Navy has intercepted the Mozambique-registered fishing vessel VEGA 5 after a gun battle in the Arabian Sea, and has taken 61 pirates prisoner. Thirteen of the Vega 5’s crew was rescued unharmed. Vega 5 has been used as a pirate mother ship since her capture in December.
The Indian Navy has intercepted the Mozambique-registered fishing vessel VEGA 5 after a gun battle in the Arabian Sea, and has taken 61 pirates prisoner. Thirteen of the Vega 5’s crew was rescued unharmed. Vega 5 has been used as a pirate mother ship since her capture in December.
The Vega 5 was spotted by an Indian Navy reconnaissance aircraft on Friday, 11 March and the order was given to an Indian Navy ship, INS KALPENI and the corvette INS KHUKRI to intercept. The aircraft, a Dornier patrol plane was responding to appeals for help from the merchant ship VANCOUVER BRIDGE that it was being attacked by pirates. On seeing the aircraft the pirates broke off the attack and headed away. INS Kalpeni made contact with Vega 5 late on Saturday afternoon and as the navy ship closed in it came under fire from two skiffs accompanying the Vega 5, said the Indian Navy, with the Kalpeni returning fire and setting the Vega 5 on fire. The pirates and original crew remaining on board the burning vessel jumped overboard and were picked up by an Indian ship while the skiffs appear to have been captured. The incident took place 700 n.miles off Kochi in southern India.
Indian authorities said afterwards it was not clear if the pirates were from Somalia or Yemen. This would be ascertained after they had been taken ashore and questioned. According to the Indian Navy the pirates were carrying about 90 weapons including small arms, rifles and some larger weapons. These were presumably among those on the two skiffs as the others, when abandoning the burning Vega 5 would have abandoned their weapons.
Vega 5 was captured by pirates in the Mozambique Channel 200 n.miles east of Quelimane in late December 2010, in one of the most southerly attacks so far recorded. The vessel which belonged to a Spanish/Mozambique company, Pescamar, was originally reported as having a crew of 24, but the vessel has been to Somalia at least once since being captured and it is possible that non-essential crew for navigating the vessel were put ashore in Somalia. The Indians are reporting only 13 crew having been on board.
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