BRUSSELS: Pirates armed with rocket-propelled grenades on Wednesday hijacked a Panama-flagged cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden with 24 crew from Bangladesh, Ghana, Egypt and Pakistan, EU naval forces said.
"In the early hours of June 2 it was reported by the owner of the MV QSM Dubai that a group of armed pirates had boarded the ship and taken control," a statement from the European Union’s Navfor anti-piracy mission said.
They said that a US warship patrolling the area had "reported that they had seen a person with an RPG on board," and after flying over the area, concluded "that the ship was hijacked."
The 15,220-tonne ship had come from Brazil and was hijacked in a patrolled stretch of waters in the Gulf described as an "internationally recommended transit corridor."
