HODEIDA, Yemen - A cruise ship headed for the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden docked Wednesday in Yemen to let off hundreds of passengers so they could bypass the dangerous waters by plane before rejoining the ship at its next port of call.
The M/S Columbus arrived in the western Yemeni port of Hodeida, where 420 passengers and crew were taking charter flights to Dubai on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula. The ship will continue with a limited crew through the Gulf of Aden, where Somali pirates have targeted commercial ships, cruise liners and yachts.
On Nov. 30, pirates fired upon the M/S Nautica -- a cruise liner carrying 650 passengers and 400 crew -- but the ship outran its assailants.
The Hamburg, Germany-based Hapag-Lloyd cruise company said Tuesday that it was taking the precaution with Columbus passengers because the German government denied its request for a security escort through the gulf.
Passengers will spend three days at a five-star hotel in Dubai waiting to rejoin the 149-metre vessel in Oman's port of Salalah for the remainder of the around-the-world trip, which began in Italy.
The surge in piracy in the busy shipping lane leading to and from the Suez Canal threatens to take a heavy economic toll. Some commercial shipping companies have announced plans to bypass the Gulf of Aden by taking the much longer and costlier route around the southern tip of Africa.
At least two other cruise operators have also altered or cancelled routes that would have brought passengers within reach of pirates.
Mohammed Abdel-Moghni, the head of a tour agency in Yemen that was handling the Columbus passengers' onward travel, said a first group has left on a flight for Dubai. Others were staying in Yemen to tour the mountainous villages of Manakha or Yemen's capital, San'a. They will be leaving on a later flight, he said.
Meanwhile, Somali pirates have freed a Greek cargo ship with 19 crew members nearly three months after it was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden, Philippines Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Esteban Conejos said Wednesday.
The MV Captain Stephanos, a Greek-owned and Bahamas-flagged bulk carrier seized on Sept. 21, was freed on Monday. The 19 crew members, including 17 Filipinos, one Chinese and one Ukrainian, are in good health and the ship was sailing to Italy before proceeding to Greece, Conejos said.
