A South Korean naval unit has thwarted a pirate attack on a Danish merchant ship 110 kilometers off the coast of Yemen.

While escorting a South Korean ship, the Cheonghae Unit received a distress call from the 21-hundred-ton "Puma" and immediately dispatched a helicopter at 8:30 a.m. Friday morning, local time.

When the chopper arrived at the scene, pirates were attempting to board the Danish ship.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the South Korean naval unit was fully prepared to respond to emergency situations and did so both accordingly and successfully by neutralizing the pirate threat and rescuing the ship.

Cheonghae was sent to the Gulf of Aden in mid-March to protect South Korean ships from pirates off the coast of Somalia. It arrived in Bahrain in early April and began its assignment Thursday.