Somali pirates have hijacked a South Korean-owned container ship with 20 crew members onboard in waters off the coast of the Horn of Africa nation.The Panamanian-registered 75,000-ton Hanjin Tianjin ship was sailing from Spain to Singapore on Thursday morning when pirates seized it several hundred kilometers off the Somali coast, a Press TV correspondent reported.
The vessel has a crew of fourteen South Korean and six Indonesian nationals.
Somali pirates are reportedly taking the hijacked South Korean ship to Harardhere, a town in the Mudug province of central Somalia.
The waters off the Indian Ocean coast of Somalia are considered the most dangerous in the world for persistent piracy attempts in the area.
Attacks by the heavily armed Somali pirates in speedboats have prompted some of the world's largest shipping firms to switch routes from the Suez Canal and send cargo vessels around southern Africa, causing a hike in shipping costs.
Somalia does not have a functional government, and the Transitional Federal Government lacks control beyond the capital city Mogadishu.