Still No Contact With The Crew Of The Hijacked Bulgarian Ship ‘Ruen’

There is still no contact with the crew of the hijacked ship "Ruen", owned by the "NAVIBULGAR" shipping company. No access to satellite phones either. There are 18 people on board the vessel, 8 of whom are Bulgarians, as well as sailors from Angola and Myanmar. The ship was boarded yesterday 380 nautical miles east of the island Socotra, in the waters of the Arabian Sea.

It is not yet known who the attackers are - whether they are rebels or pirates. A special team has been formed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to work on the case. The "NAVIBULGAR" shipping company said that protecting the safety of the ship's crew is of primary importance.

"There are institutions that are engaged. As you know, usually there needs to be more quiet for negotiations to take place as well, there is still some uncertainty as to how things will develop in the next 1-2 days. So - we are monitoring it, for the moment there is no need for additional effort," said Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov from Brussels.

"We have the information about the hijacked ship and 8 Bulgarians on it. The necessary steps have been taken to pass the information on to all partners and institutions that we will count on to provide assistance," said Mariya Gabriel, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs.

"An Iranian ship appeared, which was obviously observing, this is its function. And on board this Iranian ship are these boats, with which the given ship is attacked and taken aboard and captured. This is what happened with our ship 'Ruen. Obviously, our ship did not implement security measures, which are applicable to the Red Sea. And here the incident took place in the south, much further south", explained Prof. Vladimir Chukov, Arabist.

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