Dramatic footage has been released online showing private security guards firing machine guns at Somali pirates trying to hijack their cargo ship.
The pirates can be seen approaching the cargo ship in a speedboat as the guards on deck take aim at them with their semi-automatic weapons.
In the video, one guard opens fire, shooting warning shots all around the speedboat.
The boat is then seen crashing into the ship’s hull as one of the guards yells, ‘Where they at, what’s their position?’
The boat speeds away and a second boat then makes an entrance but is chased off too as more rounds are fired.
The video was uploaded online on April 20 by an organisation for sailors, Humans at Sea, and the gun battle reportedly took place in the Indian Ocean in 2012.
The video has already notched up more than 7 million views since it was posted online and follows the death of two Somali pirates last week.
The pirates were shot dead by a naval force near the Gulf of Aden after a group of nine bandits tried to hijack a ship, Somali official Ahmed Abdullahi told reporters.
