(Adds report ship freed, pirates arrested, changes dateline)
DUBAI, April 6 (Reuters) – Iranian naval forces freed a
Chinese freighter hijacked by Somali pirates off southern Iran
on Friday and arrested all the attackers, the semi-official
Iranian news agency Fars reported.
“Through the successful mission of Iranian naval forces, the
ship was released and nine pirates were arrested,” Iranian port
official Saeed Izadiyan said, according to Fars. It did not say
whether anyone had been hurt.
The Xianghuamen, owned by Nanjing Ocean Shipping Co Ltd,
had been seized on Friday morning in the Gulf of Oman near the
south Iranian port of Chabahar, the Chinese embassy in Tehran
reported on its website.
Izadiyan said the pirates were Somali and that the ship was
now on its way to Iran.
The Xianghuamen had departed from Shanghai, stopped to
unload goods in Singapore, and had been on its way to Imam
Khomeini port in southwest Iran, Chinese news agency Xinhua
reported.
Chinese ambassador to Iran Yu Hongyang had demanded that
Iran make the safety of the crew a priority, Xinhua reported.
(Reporting by Terril Yue Jones and Zhou Xin; Editing by Andrew
Roche)
