THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - An Egyptian cargo ship with 25 crew members aboard has been hijacked by pirates off Somalia's coast.

The International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur says Wednesday's hijacking in the Gulf of Aden is the 10th in less than two months. Centre spokesman Noel Choong says the attack occurred on the same day that a French sailboat was also seized in the area.

France says it believes there were only two French nationals aboard the sailboat.

But Choong says the distress signal picked up by the bureau indicates there was a third, non-French crewmember on board.

Somalia is the world's piracy hotspot. The latest incidents bring the number of attacks on ships off its coast to 41 this year, most of which occurred in the gulf.

The Gulf of Aden, which connects the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, is one of the world's busiest waterways with some 20,000 ships passing through each year. But it has become notorious for an increasing number of attacks by Somali pirates.

Somalia's 3,025-kilometre coast is the longest in Africa. The impoverished country has not had a functioning government since 1991.

The surge in pirate attacks has prompted the U.S. Naval Central Command to establish a security corridor in the gulf patrolled by an international coalition of warships and aircraft.