Somali pirates in the country's western coastline, off the Arabian Sea."Y'know, Mukkerjee, I think these might be... furriners!"
"No! Say it ain't so, Patel!"
At least 17 people were locked away in Saurashtra region of Gujarat
...where rioting seems to be a traditional passtime...
on Monday, after local fishermen tipped off the coastline police about the foreign faces, a Press TV report said.
"Y'aint from around here, air yew?"
"Ummm... We are simple but well-armed fishermen, sir!"
"Drop the rosco, Long John!"
Of the 17, fourteen are reportedly Somali nationals, and the other three are from Yemen, police inspector BH Jadeja said. According to the Yemenis, their vessel was seized by the armed Somalis in the high seas, but it ran out of fuel and drifted to the Indian coast.
"Really, effendi! We wuz just fishin' an' suddenly there they wuz...!"
"No, no! Really it wuz we who were innocently fishing and those three Yemenis jumped us when we wudn't lookin'!"
The 17 men were in bad shape and had to be transferred to a local hospital before being taken into police custody.
"Got some mighty sea-farin' men for you, Doc!"
Meanwhile,
...back at the sea battle, the Terror of the Baltic's career had come to an abrupt and watery end...
the security breach has troubled the Indian Navy, raising questions as how the group managed to reach the shore unnoticed.
"What was that horrible noise?"
"The admiral. He's unhappy."
Rampant piracy off the Indian Ocean coast of Somalia has made the waters among the most dangerous in terms of pirate activities. The Gulf of Aden, which links the Indian Ocean with the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea, is the quickest route for more than 20,000 vessels traveling annually between Asia, Europe and the Americas.
However,
the hip bone's connected to the leg bone...
attacks by heavily armed Somali pirates on speedboats have prompted some of the world's largest shipping firms to switch routes from the Suez Canal and reroute cargo vessels around southern Africa, leading to climbing shipping costs.
| Probably still cheaper than the increased insurance costs for sticking to the old routes. Will we be seeing more wrecks on the Cape of Good Hope? There used to ba lot of that kind of thing, back when air pushed on sails attached to smallish wooden creations... |