The spokesman for the PNV in the Defense Committee of Congress, José Ramón Beloki, has registered a question to the Defense Minister, Carme Chacon, in which it is interested  for the “immediate” plans handled by the Central Executive to protect from pirates threat the crew members of Spanish fishing vessels and tuna-freezers  which are heading now to the Somali coast to begin the  fishing high  season.

In April 2008, the 26 crew of the tuna seiner Playa de Bakio, owned by a Bermeo company (five Basques, eight Galicians and thirteen Africans), were abducted a week at the hands of Somali pirates. Only the payment of a ransom for the vessel’s owner (local authorities spoke of $ 1.2 million, about 766,000 euros) led to the release of all hostages.

In its question in writing recorded in the lower house, Beloki says that, “echoing the deep concern of the fishing sector, want to know” what specific action to protect that area is going to take the Spanish government, whether on the frame  or not of the Operation Atalanta, the European mission against pirates in the Indian Ocean.

In his parliamentary question, the Deputy from the PNV said that the organizations of shipowners ANABAC (National Association of Tuna Freezers Shipowners) and OPAGAC (Organization of Associate Producers of Large Tuna Freezers)  have defined this season, a fishing area, located in front of the coast of Somalia and beyond its jurisdictional waters, “so that the fleet can restart their fishing activities in the Indian Ocean in a minimum security conditions.” Jose Ramon Beloki knows that this zone, which he provides the exact coordinates, lies off the coast of the Seychelles islands and between the cities of Obbian, north of Mogadishu and Mombassa, south of Kenya.

Source: El País