Danish special forces have stormed a ship captured by Somali pirates and freed 25 crew members with no casualties, dpa quoted a European Union naval spokesman and the Danish navy as saying today. The Antigua and Barbuda-flagged Ariella sent a distress call in the early hours of the morning when it was boarded by pirates in the Gulf of Aden. Danish warship Absalon, operating under NATO command, responded to the call and sent a team to the ship, John Harbour, spokesman for the European Union's anti-piracy mission off Somalia EUNAVFOR, said. "The crew had locked themselves in a secure room ... once the special forces knew they were secure, they stormed the ship and the pirates fled," he told the German Press Agency dpa. Harbour said the special forces were in control of the ship, and that pirates fled in advance of the attack. "They (the pirates) could still be on the ship or may have gone overboard in a skiff," he said. Piracy is rife off the Horn of Africa nation, which has not had a functioning government since 1991. Young men take to the seas in the Gulf of Aden in search of multimillion-dollar ransoms despite the presence of over a dozen international warships, which were dispatched to the area in 2008 to combat a rise in piracy. Harbour said the rescue was possible because the ship was registered with the naval force and was travelling in a convoy along an agreed corridor, allowing a fast response. The Absalon has already played a significant role in fighting piracy in the region. A year ago the crew of the Absalon seized five Somali pirates who had boarded a Dutch ship and last weekend, after arriving for a new tour of duty, helped the crew of an Indian vessel in the Gulf of Aden.
