Pirates seize Italian cargo ship in Arabian Sea

Pirates on Thursday seized an Italian cargo ship headed for Iran with 21 crew members on board, including six Italians, in the Arabian Sea near Oman, an official at the ship owner told AFP.Pirates fired on the 225-metre (738-foot) Panamax-type vessel during the assault but no one was injured and the captain and crew "are in good condition", said Carlo Miccio from the Naples-based company Perseveranza. "The captain told me everything is okay, relatively speaking," he said."He was trying to give me more information but the pirates understood what he was doing and they cut the line," he added. Miccio said that tracking equipment showed the ship, which was sailing from Brazil with a cargo of soybeans, was "almost stationary". He said there had been no demand for ransom from the pirates and that he had contacted the Italian foreign ministry. The hijacking of the "Rosalia D'Amato" happened at around 0200 GMT, some 400 miles (650 kilometres) from the coast of Oman. The ship has a deadweight tonnage of 74,500 tons and was built in 2001. A 105,000-ton Italian oil tanker with 22 crew on board was seized by Somali pirates in February also in the Indian Ocean. The pirates in that attack fired assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades but there were no injuries. Piracy has surged off the lawless east African nation in recent years. Despite the increased international naval presence, piracy hit an all-time high in the first three months of 2011 with 142 attacks worldwide, the International Maritime Bureau said in a report this month. Ecoterra International, an environmental and human rights organisation monitoring maritime activity in the region, said more than 40 foreign vessels are currently being held for ransom by Somali pirates.