A crew member from the Dutch frigate Hr. Ms. Evertsen, looks at sea in the Indian Ocean on September 19, 2009. The Dutch frigate HMS Evertsen takes part in the Operation Atalanta, a campaign from the EU to stop piracy off the Somali Coast. (Robin Utrecht/AFP/Getty Images)
"The pirates killed the captain after he refused to turn the ship. Usually, we send police when commercial ships draw near the port but the pirates were already on board and opened fire injuring one policeman," Abdiasis Hassan, minister for ports, told Reuters.
African Union peacekeeping mission (AMISOM) troops and Somali police rescued the ship, officials said.
"The captain was a Syrian and his body is at the port now. The ship's name is Barwaqo," Ahmed Abdi, a port official, told Reuters.
Three crew members were also injured, he said.
"Our soldiers opened fire on two boats that were trying to hijack the ship," Barigye Ba-Hoku, AMISOM's spokesman, told Reuters. "We got messages asking for our help and we helped to rescue the ship."
Piracy has surged off the Somali coast in recent years where sea gangs continue to defy foreign navies patrolling the vast shipping lanes linking Asia and Europe.
There has been a relative lull in Indian Ocean waters in the past few months because of monsoon winds but analysts fear the number of pirate attacks will rise again soon.
Piracy attacks around the world more than doubled to 240 from 114 during the first six months of the year, according to the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Centre.
