Africa Monitoring Desk Islamabad
Five sailors including 3 Pakistanis one each from India and Myanmar were killed and four others were injured during a rescue operation by security forces after being held hostage by Somali pirates on the oil tanker MT Honour 25 since April this year.
Prior to the “rescue”, families in Karachi held continuous protests criticizing the lack of direct government negotiations due to official “no ransom policies”. Their families had spent months seeking the safe release of their loved ones, staging peaceful protests and repeatedly approaching government authorities.
Puntlan police initially reported that 21 suspected pirates had been apprehended, but later revised the figure to 16.
According to the surviving crew members, the governments of Somalia and the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in northeastern Somalia launched a joint operation on Tuesday to free the hostages from the pirates. An exchange of fire took place between Somali security forces and the pirates during the operation.
The Pakistani crew members said that when the pirates came under pressure and began retreating, they opened indiscriminate fire on the abducted crew members before fleeing the vessel.
Pakistani sailors Hussain Yousuf and Imran Ali, who survived the attack, contacted the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust office in Karachi using the ship captain’s mobile phone and provided details of the incident.
Pakistani crew members killed in the attack are Second Officer Kashif Umar, Third Engineer Mahmood Ansari and Boiler Rafiullah. An Indian crew member, Tanveer, and the chief engineer from Myanmar were also among those killed.
The injured crew members were identified as Usman, Aqeel, Ameen and Vicky from Indonesia. Yasir Khan, Hussain Yousuf, Imran Ali and Yaseen remained safe.
The oil tanker Honour 25, sailing under the Somali flag from Oman to Somalia, was hijacked by pirates on April 21. There were 17 crew members aboard, 10 of whom were Pakistani nationals. The families of the Pakistani hostages have continuously appealed to the government for the safe release of their loved ones.
During their captivity, the pirates initially demanded a ransom of $3 million for their release. The demand was later reduced to $1.9 million and subsequently to $1 million.
Puntland police said they had rescued another oil tanker, days after a rescue operation ended with pirates escaping in suspicious circumstances. They added that the Honour 25 had 18,500 barrels of oil on board when it was hijacked.
The police have been chasing three hijacked vessels off the Somali coast in recent days and rescued one of the other oil tankers, Sibu 1, on Friday. However, 28 of the 41 pirates arrested in the operation later escaped while being transferred to jail, with several Puntland security officials accusing local police of complicity.
The Gulf of Aden and Somalia coasts have seen a resurgence in piracy since April, according to figures from the International Maritime Organisation, with at least 15 attacks this year, the highest since 2013.
