A St. Vincent and Grenadines- flagged cargo ship has been missing for three weeks but rescue efforts are underway to locate the vessel, a Kenyan maritime official said on Thursday.
Andrew Mwangura, director of the Mombasa-based East African Seafarers Assistance Program, said the MV Reef Azania vanished 20 days ago after leaving Dubai carrying tons of general cargo for delivery in Seychelles and Zanzibar.
Mwangura said the ship owners have not located the vessel which had 12 crew members -- eight Tanzanians and four Indians -- onboard.
"The MV Reef Azania left Dubai 20 days ago and was to deliver cargo to Seychelles and then to Zanzibar but no one knows where the sailors are," he told Xinhua by telephone from Mombasa.
"We don't know where the vessel went missing but intense efforts were underway to establish the fate of the missing ship."
If it is confirmed that the MV Reef Azania was seized by Somali pirates, it would bring to five the number of foreign vessels held off the Horn of Africa nation in some of the most dangerous waters in the world.
Four ships are currently held by Somali pirates -- two from South Korea, one from Denmark and one from China's Taiwan province, while two others are reportedly missing off the coast of Somalia.
More than ten ships had been hijacked off the coast of Somalia since this year.
The surge in piracy in the waters off the Somali coast, one of Africa's longest and one of the world's most dangerous, has sparked off global outcry with the United Nations calling for international action to combat Somalia's "plague of piracy," saying it threatened vital aid deliveries to some 1 million people.
Source: Xinhua
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