Pirates Fight Over PRK Ship Headed to Scrapyard

There seems to be more to this story that you probably didn’t hear:

During a serious shoot-out between two rival pirate groups surrounding the sea-jacked MV RIM, leaving 9 Somalis dead, the Syrian crew of the vessel managed to overpower six pirates on board and to sail free.

The North-Korean-flagged, originally Libyan owned general cargo vessel MV RIM was captured - en route from Eritrea to presumably Yemen - in the north-western Gulf of Aden just south of the Yemeni coast on 2nd February 2009 .
…
The relatively small coastal cargo ship of 4,800 tonnes is still listed in the ship registers as being owned by White Sea Shipping of Tripoli in Libya, while in reality it was allegedly sold now to another company for her last cargo trip with a load of clay and with a final destination at the scrapyards in India. Rumours that it actually was carrying weapons destined for the Yemen rebels persisted.

Her crew comprises at the moment of 10 sailors - all of Syrian nationality and an actual crew-list had been provided. The vessel and crew, however, are neither covered by an ITF Agreement nor an appropriate insurance.

An undocumented, uninsured clay-carrying scow being fought over by two bands of pirates? Pirates must really be into pottery.

And look at all the facts in the report! There’s too much information here for Big Media to handle.

H/T: Shrinkwrapped

Note: Title changed from ROK to PRK. My mistake.