Filipino crew member died on hijacked Malaysian tanker

Agence France-Presse

KUALA LUMPUR - A Filipino crew member died in an "accident" while the Malaysian palm oil tanker he was working on was seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia last week, the ship's owner said.

The Bunga Melati Dua, owned by Malaysian shipping company MISC, was seized last Tuesday in the Gulf of Aden with 39 crew, including 29 Malaysians and 10 Filipinos, and remains in the hands of the pirates.

The tanker, fully laden with 32,025 tons of palm oil, was heading towards the Dutch port of Rotterdam from Sumatra in Indonesia at the time of the attack.

"We have been able to establish more communication with the crew of Bunga Melati Dua and are now able to confirm that the fatality on board involving a Filipino crew member was an accident during the time of boarding of the vessel by the hijackers," MISC said in a statement issued late Monday.

"All remaining crew members are safe and are taken care of. Negotiations are ongoing to secure the safe release of the crew members," it said.

MISC did not elaborate on the accident or how the man died.

"To protect and safeguard the safety of our people on board, we are not able to provide any detailed information at this point of time," it said.

Last Thursday, three more ships -- German, Iranian and Japanese -- were hijacked off the Somali coast in an unprecedented series of attacks. Seven ships have been menaced in the Gulf of Aden in the past month.

Noel Choong, head of the Kuala Lumpur-based International Maritime Bureau's (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre, said he was unable to provide further details on the Malaysian ship or the other vessels.

"The ships are still hijacked, nothing has changed yet," he told AFP.

Somalia has no central government and the IMB has called on the United Nations to take action to secure the waters and stop the piracy menace in the Gulf of Aden.

The waters off Somalia and Nigeria are the most pirate-infested in the world, with the IMB reporting 24 attacks in Somalia and 18 in Nigeria between April and June this year.ABSCBN News

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