Wife of boat captain missing in second piracy attack seeking help

attention. The crew members, he said, were injured in the brutal beating they received from the pirates.

“A crewman told me that when they came to the boat they fire a shot and my brother jumped overboard. And them man seh, `oh you want jump overboard?’ And they scramble him and pull he in their boat and beat him. The [crew] man seh after that, he hear one scream and they throw he overboard,” Heeralall explained on Thursday.

He had also related that when his brother’s boat came under attack, the pirates fired a warning shot and his brother jumped overboard.

The “hijackers came to them and fired a shot at their boat and meh brother jump and when he jump from the boat, the hijackers what had come in his boat called their partners and say, `ayo collect the man at the back’ and the hijackers use them boat went and collect he,” the brother had explained.Recounting further what was told to him by the crewmembers, Heeralall had said after the pirates pulled his brother from the water, they placed him in their boat.

At this point, he said one of the pirates who was already in his brother’s boat returned to his boat with the cutlass and said, “`bring am come leh me look after him’, and they hear meh brother holler one time and the one time he holler they hear.”

After hearing Hardeo scream, the crewmembers reported that they heard their attackers saying, “abbie done look after him.” It was around this time they said Hardeo was thrown overboard.

The pirates then returned to the boat Hardeo and his crewmembers occupied and carted off 2 ½ barrels of gasoline, cellphones, a GPS tracking system and the crew’s rations, before escaping.

According to Heeralall, he and his brother had been residing in Suriname for some years now with their immediate families. He noted that his brother has been a part of the fishing trade for approximately 15 years.

The attack came almost a week after the horrific one on four fishing boats in the vicinity of the Wia Wia bank in Suriname. It was reported that each fishing boat was occupied by five persons, comprising the captain and four fishermen.

Of the 20 crew members who came under attack then, five are known to have survived; four making it to shore soon after, and the fifth, being rescued on Wednesday.