Early Friday morning, the Turkish naval frigate TCG Gediz, which set sail from Turkey to Somalia in June as part of a UN-led force to prevent pirates from hijacking foreign ships off the Somali coast, learned of the attempted hijacking of the Elgiznur Çebi, with 19 crew members on board, which left the Ukrainian port of Yuzhny with a shipment of iron heading for the Saudi Arabian port of Dammam, the Undersecretariat for Maritime Affairs said in a written statement released on Friday.
A German helicopter under NATO assignment was briefed and directed to the scene of the incident, successfully thwarting the hijacking attempt, the statement said without elaborating, while noting that all 19 crew members were safe and sound.
On Tuesday, the Turkish military announced that Turkish commandos operating under a joint NATO mission to combat piracy in the Gulf of Aden had recently captured five Somali pirates and thwarted possible attacks on two commercial ships in the area.
A hijacked Turkish commercial ship is still being held by pirates in the Gulf of Aden since its July 8 capture. The Turkish-flagged Horizon 1, with 23 Turkish crew members on board, was en route to Jordan from Saudi Arabia when it was hijacked. The pirates have demanded a sizeable ransom to release the ship and hostages.
