South Korea says oil tanker with 24 sailors aboard believed hijacked by Somali pirates

SKorea: Tanker believed hijacked by Somali pirates

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s Foreign Ministry says a South Korean-owned oil tanker with 24 sailors aboard is believed to have been hijacked by Somali pirates.

The ministry says the hijacking is thought to have occurred Sunday about 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) southeast of the Gulf of Aden.

A ministry official says a South Korean navy ship operating in the Gulf of Aden received a call from the tanker saying three Somali pirates had boarded the vessel. The official says there was no subsequent contact.

The ministry says five crew members are South Korean and 19 are Filipino. It says the 300,000-ton-class tanker was sailing from Iraq to the U.S. state of Louisiana.

Somalia, which has had no functioning government since 1991, is the world’s top piracy hot spot.