Somali pirates seize German vessel, crew unhurt

Somali pirates have seized a 31,000-tonne German grain carrier in the Gulf of Aden but the ship's 17 crew members are unhurt, a Kenyan maritime official said on Saturday.

The Malta-flagged MV Patriot is owned by Patriot Schiffahrts and managed by Blumenthal JMK of Hamburg, Germany, said Andrew Mwangura, director of the Mombasa-based East African Seafarers Assistance Programme.

"I hear it was taken early this morning," he told Reuters. "It was hijacked in the eastern end of the Gulf of Aden."

Piracy attacks off the eastern African coast have escalated in the past few weeks despite the presence of a flotilla of foreign navy warships in the region.

Sea gangs are holding more than 250 hostages and have made millions of dollars through ransoms, driving up insurance costs. Some shipping lines now opt to use a longer and more expensive route around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid capture.

Hijackings rose nearly 200 percent to 111 in 2008. So far this year, there have been about 40 incidents.

The Foreign Ministry in Berlin said it could not confirm the German vessel had been seized. "We've seen the news reports and we're investigating," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

In the latest high-profile hijacking, pirates attacked a U.S. ship, the Maersk Alabama, earlier in April.

Its unarmed crew of 20 fought back and the pirates were forced to flee with the ship's captain, Richard Phillips, in a lifeboat. After a tense standoff with the U.S. Navy, Phillips was rescued, with three pirates shot dead by snipers.

The U.S. action could force the gangs to take more drastic action, including executing some of their hostages, some analysts say.

The pirates have so far avoided deliberately harming captured crew members and in 2008 secured some $100 million in ransom payments for crews and vessels.

The pirates have reinvested some of their takings in bigger weaponry and widened their reach to 500 miles (800 kms) from the Somali coast. (

By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura (Additional reporting by Birgit Mittwollen in Berli)

NAIROBI, April 25 (Reuters) -