Hijacked Bangladeshi ship anchors near Somalian port: BMMOA
NEWS DESK
The hijacked Bangladeshi-flagged cargo ship has anchored 20 miles off the Somalian port of Garacad, Bangladesh Merchant Marine Officers’ Association (BMMOA) said this afternoon.
The latest position of the ship was confirmed by a global shipping source that is monitoring its movement, BMMOA General Secretary Md Shakawat Hossain said around 1:00pm.
The vessel has dropped anchor about 20 miles from the Somalian port, said KSRM Media Adviser Mizanul Islam.
The ship is owned by SR Shipping Limited, a sister concern of KSRM.
The pirates have not communicated with the ship owners till now, Mizanul said.
It may take a few more days — two or three or even more — to get the first response from the pirates, he added.
Around 6:00am, the ship was around 72 nautical miles off the Somalian port of Garacad and it was moving towards the coast.
Meanwhile, an inter-ministerial meeting is scheduled to be held at the conference room of the foreign ministry in Dhaka this morning to discuss the safe rescue of MV Abdullah and its 23 crew members.
The meeting will be held in order to ensure safety and welfare of the crew and to identify strategies with a view to arranging safe return of the ship along with its crewmen, as stated in a letter signed by Md Iftekhar Rahman, senior assistant secretary (Africa).
Acting Foreign Secretary Rear Admiral (Retd) Md Khurshed Alam will preside over the meeting, the letter stated.
Suspected Somali pirates on Tuesday hijacked the ship in the Indian ocean.
The ship was sailing from Maputo in Mozambique to Al Hamriyah in the UAE with 58,000 tonnes of coal.
