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| Africa Horn |
| 17 seamen freed by pirates |
| 2009-04-18 |
| [Straits Times] SEVENTEEN Filipino seamen held hostage by Somali pirates have been freed, leaving 105 Philippines nationals still in the hands of pirates, the government said here on Friday. The 17 Filipinos were on board the Greek-registered MV Titan when it was seized by heavily armed pirates on March 19 after sailing through the Gulf of Aden, said Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Esteban Conejos. He would not say if any ransom was paid for the hostages. 'We coordinated with foreign governments, the shipping companies and the local manning agencies in the Philippines,' for the release of the Filipinos, he said. Since 2006, a total of 227 Filipino seamen have been abducted in the waters off Somalia and were later released without any intervention from the Philippine government, Conejos said. He said the government was still proposing a ban on Filipino seamen working on ships passing near Somalia but in the absence of such a ban, Manila was instead appealing to shipping companies to stay within an area patrolled by a multinational force guarding against piracy. 'We asked them to ensure their ships to use the security corridor and preferably do so in convoy formation,' he said. The government will dispatch a Philippine naval liaison officer to the combined maritime forces based in Manama, Bahrain, to monitor the condition of abducted Filipino sailors, he added. The Philippines is the world's leading supplier of crew, with more than 350,000 sailors manning oil tankers, luxury liners and passenger vessels worldwide. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 The Truth in Headlines Squad says: 17 Hostages Released by Pirates After Ransom Paid |
| Posted by: ed 2009-04-18 06:49 |