Hijacked MV Abdullah: Pirates make first contact
Ship's owners say they were contacted through a third party
The pirates who hijacked MV Abdullah, a Bangladesh-flagged cargo ship, today contacted the owners of the vessel for the first time since seizing the ship with 23 crew members on board on March 12.
"The pirates contacted us through a third party this afternoon for the first time," said Mizanul Islam, media advisor of KSRM Group, a subsidiary of which owns the vessel.
"A contact has been established. We will discuss [with the pirates] further," he said replying to a query on whether the pirates demanded any ransom.
"The owners have all sorts of preparation, we hope we shall able to solve the crisis through discussion," he told The Daily Star.
The pirates, believed to be Somalian, hijacked MV Abdullah with 23 crew members on March 12 around 500 nautical miles off the Somalian coast.
The ship was sailing from Maputo in Mozambique to Al Hamriyah in the UAE with 58,000 tonnes of coal.
MV Abdullah is owned by SR Shipping Limited, a subsidiary of KSRM Group.