Official: Egyptian ship hijacked near Somalia

An Egyptian cargo ship with 25 crew members has been hijacked by pirates off Somalia's coast, the 10th vessel to be seized in less than two months, a global maritime watchdog said Friday.

Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur, said the Egyptian ship was seized late Wednesday in the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden.

The attack occurred on the same day that a French sailboat was seized in the area, he said. No other information was immediately available.

The French ministry said it believed there were only two French nationals aboard the sailboat. Choong said the distress signal report to the bureau showed there was a third non-French crew on the boat. The information could not be confirmed, however.

"The number of ships hijacked has risen dramatically. This is the 10th ship to be seized since July 20," he said, urging the U.N. and the international community to "take immediate action before it gets out of control."

Somalia is the world's piracy hotspot. The latest incidents bring the number of attacks on ships off its coast to 41 this year, most of which occurred in the gulf, he added.

The Gulf of Aden, which connects the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, is one of the world's busiest waterways with some 20,000 ships passing through each year. But it has become notorious for an increasing number of attacks, apparently by Somali pirates.

Somalia's 1,880-mile (3,025-kilometer) coast is the longest in Africa. The impoverished country has not had a functioning government since 1991.

The surge in pirate attacks has prompted the U.S. Naval Central Command to establish a security corridor in the gulf patrolled by an international coalition of warships and aircraft.