pirates take 4 tourists hostage

[Amby 490]

Pirates took four European tourists hostage after their yacht ran out of fuel off the coast of northern Somalia in the Red Sea's Gulf of Aden, according to a Somaliland official.

The pirates then took their hostages -- a man, woman, their child and their yacht's pilot -- into hills around the fishing town of Las Qoray, said Ahmed Yusuf Yasin, vice president of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland.

Somaliland soldiers and local residents were searching for the pirates in an effort to free the hostages, Yasin said.

Las Qoray is in a territory claimed by both Puntland, a self-declared autonomous state, and Somalia. The two sides clashed over the disputed land earlier this year.

Yasin said he believed the hostages were either French or German.

Earlier this month the U.N. Security Council gave nations new powers to pursue pirates into the waters off Somalia in an effort to combat a new spate of hijackings off the Horn of Africa.

The Gulf of Aden in particular has become a treacherous stretch for shipping in recent months, with more than two dozen pirate attacks reported since the beginning of 2008, according to the International Maritime Bureau. Nine of those have been successful hijackings, the bureau said.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/06/24...alia/index.html

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Pirates are actually pretty common on the African coast - as well as parts of the Far East.

[Eric-Pris 1,606]

What the hell were the tourists doing in that part of the world? They wanted an adventure. They got one.

Edited June 24, 2008 by kid brooklyn

[Amby 490]

Pirates are actually pretty common on the African coast - as well as parts of the Far East.

yes...my mind was somewhere else. all that buttsecks talk in the gym thread made me think butt pirates

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I guess that would give more meaning to the phrase "Jolly Roger".

Perhaps they have a skull and crossbones on a pink flag

[Amby 490]

[*JG* 2]

If they all looked like Johnny Depp, I wouldn't mind.

Otherwise.....scary!

[Scott & Lai 12]

Assuming they are all rescued, the parents should be charged with child-endangerment for doing something so stupid and reckless as to take a child on an unarmed, unescorted yacht anywhere near that area.

[rclouse 0]

yar-har!

[Nagishkaw 510]

Rotten eggs.