Nairobi, Kenya (AHN) -- Somali pirates on Thursday seized a foreign nation's vessel. The latest victim is a Thailand-flagged fishing boat. The European Union's anti-piracy patrol off Somalia NAVFOR said it had spotted the Thai Union 3 coming under attack by two pirate skiffs early Thursday morning. EU NAVFOR Maritime Patrol Aircraft made visual contact with the fishing vessel and confirmed that pirates were on board.

Officials are not sure how many crew the vessel was carrying or their nationalities.

Eight vessels have now been captured for ransom by Pirates over the last few weeks. On Otober 22 a British couple, Paul and Racher Chandler had been traveling on their 38-foot-yacht, the Lynn Rival. They had just left the Seychelles to Tanzania when they were taken by pirates. Ecoterra International, a group which monitors pirate activity off Somalia, said that the yacht was seen on Tuesday between the pirate towns of Hobyo and Harardhere.

Piracy is a profitable and ongoing problem off the Somali peninsula as a result of the region not having an effective central government since 1991. Pirates on skiffs are successfully getting multimillion dollar ransoms for their trouble. Despite over a dozen international warships dispatched to the Gulf of Aden in 2008, pirates have just gone out further in the Indian Ocean to avoid them.

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