A cargo ship that was feared to have been hijacked by pirates has been spotted 400 nautical miles off one of the Cape Verde islands.
The 'Arctic Sea' disappeared off the coast of France two weeks ago.
The 4,000-tonne bulk carrier with a 15-strong Russian crew went missing shortly after passing through the Dover Strait between France and Britain late last month.
The Maltese-registered, Finnish-chartered, vessel was sailing from Finland to the Algerian port of Bejaia, where it was due to have docked on 4 August with a €915,000 load of timber.
Britain's Maritime and Coastguard Agency said the Arctic Sea last made radio contact on 28 July as it entered the Dover Strait.
Shortly afterwards its transponder, which transmits an electronic location signal, was switched off.
The vessel's movements were last recorded on the AIS live ship tracking system off the coast of northern France on 30 July, although it has also been spotted off Portugal.
The Malta Maritime Authority said it received reports it was boarded by men posing as police in Swedish waters on 24 July.
Cape Verdean coastguard officials were considering what action to take if the ship entered its territorial waters.
Experts have debated whether pirates, a mafia quarrel or a commercial dispute were behind the disappearance of the Maltese-flagged ship.
An EU spokesman said that the ship appeared to have been attacked twice, but not in ‘traditional’ acts of piracy.
EU Commission spokesman Martin Selmayr said ‘co-ordinated reaction has been established between the (EU) member states concerned by this matter’ but offered no further comment ‘in order not to hinder the ongoing law enforcement activities’.
Swedish police say the ship was hijacked in the Baltic Sea on July 24, when masked men claiming to be anti-drugs police boarded the ship, tied up the crew and searched the vessel. But the men reportedly left after about 12 hours.
