Pirates kidnap Indian sailors
S. Sudan frees 6
DUBAI, UAE, April 3, (Agencies): Pirates have seized a small boat and kidnapped its 11 Indian crew members off the coast of Somalia, an investigator said Monday, the latest vessel targeted by the region’s resurgent hijackers.
The attack on the small ship happened Saturday as the vessel passed through the narrow channel between Yemen’s Socotra island and the Somali coast, said Graeme Gibbon Brooks, the CEO of the maritime firm Dryad Maritime. The pirates are taking the vessel to the Eyl area of northern Somalia, he said.
The small dhow, a traditional wooden ship common in regional waters, initially was heading from Dubai to Bosaso, Somalia, he said.
Lt Ian McConnaughey, a spokesman for the US Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain, said sailors there are “aware of the reports and we are monitoring the situation.” The 5th Fleet oversees regional antipiracy efforts.
Piracy off Somalia’s coast was once a serious threat to the global shipping industry. It has lessened in recent years after an international effort to patrol near the country, whose weak central government has been trying to assert itself after a quarter-century of conflict. Since then, concerns about piracy off Africa’s coast have largely shifted to the West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean.
But frustrations have been rising among Somali fishermen, including former pirates, at what they say are foreign fishermen illegally fishing in local waters.
No confidence motion: South Africa’s Speaker of parliament said she is considering an emergency motion of no confidence against President Jacob Zuma after he fired the country’s widely respected finance minister last week.
Baleka Mbete said Sunday that she cut short an overseas trip to deal with the “serious parliamentary issues” that have arisen since Zuma reshuffled his Cabinet last week.
Mbete, speaking to Johannesburg at Johannesburg airport upon her arrival from Bangladesh, said her office received a letter from the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, requesting that the national assembly, which is in recess until May 10, resume earlier to vote on the motion.
South Sudan releases 6: An international aid organization says South Sudan’s military has released six of its workers who had been arrested in January and accused of smuggling arms.
Doctors Without Borders told The Associated Press Monday that the aid workers were arrested Jan 4 in the Yei area on suspicion of transferring weapons to the opposition, charges denied by the Switzerland-based organization.
However, South Sudan’s Information Minister Michael Makuei insisted on Monday that the charges are valid. He added that the released workers left Yei without permission.
Armed gang steal cash cargo: South Africa police are hunting for a gang of armed robbers who blew up an armored cash-in-transit truck in busy traffic in Johannesburg, escaping with an undisclosed amount of money.
Police spokesman Lungelo Dlamini said Sunday that police recovered the two vehicles used in the heist and are hunting for the suspects but no arrests have been made.
The robbers, travelling in a BMW and a Mercedes-Benz, shot out the tires of the armored truck shortly before noon on Saturday as it was traveling toward Johannesburg’s international airport, according to police.
3 suicide bombers die: Nigerian police confirm that three suicide bombers blew themselves up attempting to get into the northeastern city of Maiduguri.
Police spokesman Victor Isuku said that on Sunday morning two men detonated explosive vests when security agents challenged them near an entry to Maiduguri, the northeastern city that has sustained several attacks. He said the bombers killed only themselves.
Isuku said a lone bomber at a different location also blew himself up, injuring a civilian.