Italian merchant vessel hijacked

An Italian merchant vessel bound for the Indian port of Kandla has been hijacked by a group of stowaways.

The group of at least 14 individuals from Iran and Iraq boarded the boat in the Iranian Gulf port of Bandar-e-Abbas on Friday.

India's Navy and coast guards have been put on alert to prevent the ship from entering Indian waters.

At one point the stowaways threatened to blow up the ship unless they were granted political asylum in the west.

The hijackers have since told the insurers of the ship the bomb threat was a hoax. The ship is about two hundred and sixty nautical miles from the Indian coast.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service