MV Izumi with 20 Filipino crew reported released by Somali pirates on February 26, 2011
The Panama-flagged, Japanese-owned, MV Izumi, has been reported by the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs as being released from Somali pirate control on February 26, 2011. The vessel is now en route to Mombasa, Kenya with the crew of 20 Filipino seafarers onboard, said the Coalition Maritime Forces liaison officer, Captain Gaudencio Collado. In a statement by the Philippines DFA, the crew will be repatriated to Manila from Mombasa. The original report is available here.
MV Izumi was originally reported by its owners as being pirated after receiving an automatically released distress signal indicating that it was likely under pirate attack on October 10, 2010. It was declared as hijacked October 11, 2010. A Danish warship, part of the EUNAVFOR operation Atalanta, was despatched to investigate. MV Izumi, had been reported on numerous occasions to being used as a mothership to carry out pirate attacks on other merchant vessels further out in the Indian Ocean. It was suggested that the vessel had ceased mothership operations in late December 2010 whilst negotiations were ongoing, once it had returned to anchor off the Somali coast. No statement has been released, so far, relating to whether any ransom payment had been paid.
MV Izumi (Image source: EUNAVFOR)
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