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| Africa Horn |
| SA hostages freed by Somali pirates |
| 2012-06-22 |
| MOGADISHU: Somali security forces have rescued a South African couple kidnapped by pirates in the Indian Ocean and held for 18 months, Defense Minister Hussein Arab Isse said yesterday. "The rescue started last night (Wednesday) and lasted until this morning and you can see that the pair were freed safely," Isse told a joint press conference with the couple, Debbie Calitz and Bruno Pelizzari, who appeared with sunken eyes and ashen faces. Isse said the raid was a joint operation by security forces and the army and that the couple had been freed from "Al-Qaeda-affiliated" insurgents. It was not immediately clear whether this meant that the pirates who captured the couple had sold them on to Somalia's Shebab rebels, a group linked to Al-Qaeda. Sources said the operation took place in the lower Shabelle region of southern Somalia, close to Mogadishu. Calitz and Pelizzari were sailing in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Kenya in 2010 when their yacht was hijacked by 12 pirates who set course for Somalia and took the couple ashore at Baraawe. The Somali defense minister made no mention of any ransom payment. He told journalists that more such raids may be staged. "We know the whereabouts of the rest of the hostages, including the French agent, and if the kidnappers fail to free them, we will forcefully rescue them," he said, referring to a French intelligence agent seized in Mogadishu in July 2009 and detained since. Calitz, aged around 50, and Pelizzari, in his early fifties, were working as crew on the yacht Choizil as it sailed from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania toward South Africa when the hijacking occurred on October 26, 2010. |
| Posted by:Steve White |