Somali pirates strike again, hijacking a Greek ship

Somali pirates seized a Greek-owned cargo ship with 24 people aboard in the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday, reports said.
The Liberia-flagged Eleni P, which is owned by Eurobulk Ltd, was transporting iron from Ukraine to China when it was seized off the coast of Somalia.
Reports said of the 24 people on baord, two were Greeks and the rest Filipinos.
Piracy is rife off the Horn of Africa nation of Somalia, which has not had an effective central government since 1991.
Heavily-armed gangs from Somalia take to the seas in search of multimillion-dollar ransoms despite the presence of over a dozen international warships, which were dispatched to the Gulf of Aden last year to combat the piracy.
The pirates have expanded their operations further out into the Indian Ocean to avoid the patrols.