According to the information revealed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday a Taiwanese fishing boat was chased off the Somali coast by pirates for several hours at about midnight. The ministry also confirmed the injury caused to the crew member of the boat during the incident. The ministry told that the vessel had since evaded the pirate ship and was heading for the Maldives.
Samuel Chen, director-general of the ministry’s Department of African Affairs, brief the press saying that the fishing boat Ruei Man Fa was chased by a light boat sent by a larger pirate ship passing off as a Taiwanese vessel about 395 nautical miles (731km) southeast of Somalia’s Cape Guardafui. Hsu Ching-tsuan, the captain of the fishing boat, informed that the light boat fired between 50 and 60 rounds at the Taiwanese boat during the chase, hitting an Indonesian crew member in the thigh.
According to Chen the bullet did not hit any major arteries and the bleeding soon stopped. The fishing boat has a crew of 14, two of them Taiwanese nationals, opined Chen. He added that the light boat appeared to have given up the chase around 3:55am and the Taiwanese vessel headed toward the Maldives at a speed of 9 knots per hour and it would take the vessel about 100 hours to reach its destination.
After receiving an emergency notice about the attack at about 1am the ministry informed the Piracy Reporting Center at the International Maritime Organization’s International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur. Chen told that the ministry also asked Mauritius-based personnel from the Fisheries Agency to ensure the wounded crew member received medical treatment after the boat arrives in the Maldives.
