All 20 crew members of a South Korean-owned container vessel, which was apparently attacked by Somali pirates early Thursday, have been confirmed safe, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

Naval commandos of the Cheonghae Unit, a South Korean anti-piracy contingent operating off the Somali coast, boarded the 75,000-ton Hanjin Tianjin and found that all crew members remained unharmed inside the citadel, a bulletproof safety zone in the ship.

The commandos searched the vessel with 14 South Koreans and six Indonesians aboard and found no pirates aboard, officials said. 

The Panamanian-registered ship owned by South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping Co. lost contact at around 5:15 a.m. Thursday when it was in waters some 460 miles east of the Somali coast. It was sailing from Spain to Singapore.

The crew members were found in the zone at around 7:30 p.m. and are currently in good health, officials said.

The commandos also discovered three live bullets of AK rifles presumed to be owned by Somali pirates and multiple footprints of bare feet, all of which indicate that pirates attempted to hijack the vessel, officials said.

A Turkish warship, just 80 miles away from the container ship at the time of the attack, first arrived at the scene to help South Korea’s rescue operation. It provided necessary information to the Cheonghae Unit before the 4,500-ton destroyer Choi Young of the unit arrived at the scene at 4:40 p.m., officials said.

“We will do our utmost to enhance maritime security and international peace in the region under the principle that our military will never make any compromise with pirates,” said JCS spokesperson Col. Lee Bung-woo in a press conference.

The attack came about three months after South Korea’s 11,500-ton chemical freighter Samho Jewelry and its 21 crew members were rescued by the Navy in a blitzkrieg days after it had been seized in the Arabian Sea between Oman and India.

The Cheonghae unit was deployed in March 2009 to join an international anti-piracy campaign in the Gulf of Aden off the Somali coast.

Somalia, with a coastline facing one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, has been in a state of civil war for two decades and has not had a functioning central administration since Dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991.

A U.S.-led military intervention aimed at restoring order in Somalia began in December 1992. However, the efforts failed and international forces pulled out in 1995 due to the growing danger to troops.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)