On Friday 9th June the Italian Naval Special Forces San Marco were alerted after receiving an SOS call of the Turkish flag (TUR) ro/ro ship GALATA SEAWAYS hijacked of which they flew on 2 Helicopters from their Brindisi HQ towards the Tyrennian Sea.
The ship departed Yalova, Turkey last Wednesday bound for Sete, France where she was scheduled to arrive on Saturday 10th June and chartered by DFDS Seaways.
Different reports indicated that the crew of the vessel spotted between 15 and 20 stowaways on security cameras and began a lockdown on the vessel. At least four or five of the stowaways were believed to be carrying knives. Some reports said the crew were able to lock themselves into the engine room and other secure locations such as the armored room from where they launched the SOS call.
The master radioed the authorities both MRSC Ajaccio (France) and MRCC Rome (Italy) reporting the situation and some of the stowaways attempted to storm the locked bridge of the vessel of which at that moment she was around 90 miles south of Naples. The decision was made to divert to Naples where the vessel was due to arrive around 1700 hrs local time.
Both Guardia di Finanza (GdiF) patrol boat G 117 SANNA and Coast Guard (Guardia Costiera) offshore vessel CP 920 BRUNO GREGORETTI intercepted the vessel offshore Naples.
Italian forces boarded the vessel from helicopters and started the evacuation operation aboard the ship. It was reported that 15 stowaways who had seized the ship were illegal immigrants hiding on board the ship bound for France. As far as has been learned, the attackers had knives and threatened 22 crew members.
Around 2000 hrs the 22 crew members of the GALATA SEAWAYS were safely called up to the bridge and an hour later the vessel was escorted to the port of Naples.
Later on the news that the hijackers were captured arrived. This was announced by the Italian Minister of Defense, Guido Crosetto: «The hijackers of the ship have been captured. Everything ended well.” The minister wrote it on Twitter.
