New Delhi: The external affairs ministry on Friday (August 21) confirmed that 22 Indian nationals are aboard two ships that have been hijacked off Somalia and Yemen. The mariners are safe, it said.India’s high commission in Nairobi, which doubles up as its mission to Somalia, also said on Friday that it has taken up the vessels’ hijacking with Somalian authorities.Six Indians were aboard the Cameroonian-flagged M/V LUTUF when pirates hijacked it and took it to a location off Somalia’s Puntland coast, AP had reported yesterday citing a Somali official. The vessel, he said, was carrying Turkish weapons bound for a military training centre in Mogadishu and had four others on board, including nationals of Turkey, Georgia and Serbia.PTI reported on Friday that the Eritrean-flagged oil products vessel MT Sibu, whose 20 crew include 16 Indian nationals, was hijacked by armed pirates in the Gulf of Aden some 56 kilometres off Yemen’s coast on Thursday.Asked about the two incidents during its bi-weekly press briefing on Friday, the external affairs ministry confirmed them and said the Indian seafarers aboard the vessels are safe.“We are in touch with the officials with regards to this so that we can take care of their security and well being,” said ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal. “Let me tell you that the welfare and safety of our seafarers and seafaring community is something to which we attach very high importance.”In a separate statement, India’s high commission in Nairobi said it has taken up the vessels’ hijacking “with the concerned authorities in Somalia”. All the 22 sailors “are reportedly safe”, it said.According to the ship-tracking service MarineTraffic, the LUTUF reported leaving Tekirdag in Turkey, near Istanbul, and being en route to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. The Sibu, it said, reported being on its way from the Shinas anchorage off Oman to Port Sudan.Eight pirates, believed to be members of a group previously involved in the hijacking of the M/V Sward on April 26, took the LUTUF toward the coast near Garmaal in Puntland’s Dangoroyo district on Monday.Two Turkish-owned vessels later approached the hijacked ship, while Turkish helicopters and drones monitored the area, the Somali official told AP. On Tuesday, a small boat carrying two men approached the vessel and delivered khat, a stimulant commonly chewed in Somalia, he said.After the boat returned to shore, an airstrike followed, killing four men and wounding two others, the official said.The circumstances of the strike, including who carried it out and whether those killed were involved in the hijacking, couldn’t immediately be independently verified. The status of the LUTUF, including its crew and cargo, wasn’t immediately clear. The AP couldn’t independently verify all details of the account.This week’s incidents take place against the background of Indian seafarers facing danger in West Asia – around the Strait of Hormuz and in the Red Sea due following the US-Israeli war on Iran – in addition to the Black Sea off the Russian and Ukrainian coastlines.