Armed pirates have looted a Romanian cargo ship blocked by a legal wrangle in a Bangladeshi port, union officials said Thursday.

Armed pirates have looted a Romanian cargo ship blocked by a legal wrangle in a Bangladeshi port, union officials said Thursday. The "Ardeal" has been held for over a year in the port of Mongla in a legal dispute over its cargo of rice. The crew has not been paid for four months and food stocks are running out, they said. The ship is among a number of vessels seized around the world as their owner fights bankruptcy. In all some 220 sailors are running short of water and food on impounded vessels. The "Ardeal's" plight has been worsened by a series of raids by pirates, the union officials said in a letter to the ship's embattled operator, Romline. "The pirates boarded the ship, blocked the crew in and stole their belongings," the letter said. The company's management resigned en masse last week saying it could not help its sailors. Romania's commercial shipping fleet, which in 1990 comprised 450 vessels including 300 tankers carrying oil or minerals, has been decimated following a series of fraudulent deals. The three ship operators into which it was divided are currently all facing bankruptcy.