AN ITALIAN cruise ship with 1,500 people on board fended off a pirate attack 500 miles off the coast of Somalia when its Israeli private security force exchanged fire with the bandits.
The MSC Melody was 200 miles north of the Seychelles during a 22-day cruise from Durban to Genoa, Italy, when six men in a small, white boat approached at about 5:30pm on Saturday and opened fire with automatic weapons.
Domenico Pellegrino, the cr
uise's director, said the pirates retreated after the security officers returned fire and sprayed them with water hoses. The ship then continued its journey, with windows darkened.
None of the 1,000 passengers or 500 crew were hurt.
"It felt like we were in war," said Ciro Pinto, the ship's commander. "They tried to put a ladder up. They were starting to climb up but we reacted, we started to fire ourselves. When they saw our fire, and also the water from the water hoses that we started to spray, they left."
Mr Pellegrino said all MSC cruise ships were staffed with Israeli security agents because they are "the best trained".
This is not the first attack on a cruise liner. However, Saturday's exchange of fire between the Melody and pirates is one of the first reported between pirates and a non-military ship.
But Andrew Mwangura, of the Mombasa-based East African Sea Farers Assistance Programme, said: "Having weapons on a passenger or merchant ship is dangerous. They should have used other means to shake off the pirates, like a loud acoustic device."
MSC Melody is proceeding to the Jordanian port of Aqaba under the escort of a Spanish warship.
