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Pirates released a Greek-operated cargo ship with a crew of 12 Ukrainians aboard that was hijacked off Somalia over the weekend, the ship’s operator says.

“Yesterday night, the captain contacted us,” said George Tripakis, managing director of TDM Carrier, the Athens-based operator of the cargo ship MG Lugela.

“He informed us that everybody is OK, alive, the pirates not on board, and the vessel in proceeding to Bombay (Mumbai, India).” Pirates attacked the vessel on Saturday some 900 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia, after it left the Gulf of Aden, the Brussels-based the European Union NAVFOR command said.

The ship altered course a short time later and headed for the Somali coast, NAVFOR said, No information was immediately available concerning the circumstances of the release of the Panama-flagged ship.

The ship had left the Egyptian port of Alexandria and was heading to Mauritius carrying steel bars and cable, the owners said. The ship has since its release been ordered to change course for Mumbai to undergo an examination.

“We would like to check the vessel,” in the Indian port, Tripakis said.

Foreign naval powers have deployed dozens of warships since 2008 in a bid to secure the Gulf, a crucial maritime route leading to the Suez Canal through which tens of thousands of merchant vessels transit each year.

But pirates have gradually extended their area of operations, seizing ships as far east as the Maldives’ territorial waters and as far south as the Canal of Mozambique.

Naval missions, including the European Union’s Atalanta deployment, have boasted success in curbing attacks but the number of hijacked ships and detained seafarers remains at one of its highest levels since Somali piracy surged in 2007.

By timeslive.co.za

A ship is docked outside the container terminal at the southern Yemeni port of Aden