A Libyan ship with a Korean Flag, called the Rim, was hijacked by Somali pirates in Gulf of Aden, reports the New York Times.

The attack was confirmed by U.S. ships stationed to monitor pirate activity.

A United States destroyer, the Porter, and a helicopter from another American destroyer, the Farragut, were in the region and confirmed the hijacking to European Union officials. The American ships are part of Combined Task Force 151, an anti-piracy operation in the gulf led by the United States.

European naval officers said the pirates seized the Rim off the southern coast of Yemen on Tuesday and were taking it to the Somali Basin on Thursday.

The ship was not registered with the European Union’s force, known as Operation Atalanta, which escorts ships from the World Food Program delivering humanitarian aid. The European flotilla also conducts antipiracy patrols in the gulf and the waters off Somalia.

A piracy monitoring group, Ecoterra, said Thursday that the vessel usually carries a crew of 17, and “based on outdated crew lists it could be assumed that they are holding Romanian and Libyan nationalities.”

Piracy is a developed problem with 217 cases of attacks last year resulting in 47 successful hijacks, 867 crew members taken hostage, according the Piracy Reporting Center of the International Maritime Bureau.