Pirates free Asian captives
‘FORGOTTEN HOSTAGES’: Fishing boat crew held in Somalia for nearly 5 years
SOMALI pirates have freed 26 Asian hostages held for nearly five years after the hijacking of their fishing vessel, the last commercial ship seized at the height of the country’s piracy scourge, negotiators said on Saturday.
The crew of the Naham 3, the second longest held hostage by Somali pirates, were taken captive when their Omani-flagged vessel was seized in March 2012 south of the Seychelles.
“We are very pleased to announce the release of the Naham 3 crew early this morning,” said John Steed, coordinator of the Hostage Support Partners (HSP), who helped negotiate their release.
Steed, a retired British army colonel who has made it his mission to save “forgotten hostages”, said the mission to return the crew to their families still held one obstacle — extracting them from the city of Galkayo, where fighting was raging between forces from the rival regional states of Puntland and Galmudug.
“There is fighting in Galkayo so it A French Navy helicopter the French warship ‘Le Nivose’ in 2009. Somali pirates hostages kidnapped in 2012 on Saturday.
is very dangerous at the moment, they are exchanging artillery tonight. We will go in tomorrow morning if the fighting stops and bring them back to Nairobi for medicals and a clean-up.”
Clashes in Galkayo had left at least 11 dead and over 50,000 displaced this month, the United Nations humanitarian agency said last week.
Once extracted, the crew, from Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, will be returned to their home countries and families.
“They have spent over 4½ years in deplorable conditions away from their families,” said Steed.
He said the crew was malnourished and one of the hostages had a bullet wound in his foot, another
off had a stroke and another was suffering from diabetes.
Pirates initially took 29 crew hostage, but one person died during the hijacking, and two more “succumbed to illness” in captivity, said the Oceans Beyond Piracy (OBP).
Steed said negotiations — which took 18 months — involved mediation with community, tribal and religious leaders. He declined to comment on the details but said the road to the hostages being freed was filled with peril and “heroism”.
Naham 3 was originally tethered to another hijacked vessel, MV Albedo, which was seized in November 2010 and released by the HSP in 2014.
When the MV Albedo began to sink “these guys jumped into the waters and rescued the drowning crew”, Steed said.
He said when the Naham 3 sank a year after its capture, “these guys were then taken ashore where they have been ever since with the pirates making increasingly irrational demands”.
“The release of Naham 3 crew represents the end of captivity for the last remaining seafarers taken hostage during the height of Somali piracy,” he said.
Only a crew of Thai fishermen, released in February last year after nearly five years in captivity, spent longer being held by Somali pirates.
Many of the hostages left languishing in the hands of pirates were poor fishermen.
“If you don’t have insurance or you are a poor little ship, no one is going to help you out,” said Steed.
The first major commercial vessel was hijacked by Somali pirates in 2005 and the industry flourished in a country wracked by years of civil war and with few jobs, and no central government.
According to the OBP, while overall numbers were down in the Western Indian Ocean, pirates in the region attacked at least 306 seafarers last year.
While there has not been a successful attack on a commercial vessel since 2012, there had been several on fishing boats and there were still 10 Iranian hostages taken last year and three Kenyan kidnap victims — one a very ill, paralysed woman — in the hands of the pirates, said Steed. AFP Policemen caused by blasts near Tochigi Prefecture, 100km north of Tokyo, yesterday. EPA pic
in Utsunomiya,