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| Africa Horn | |
| Somali pirates keep Indian hostages despite ransom | |
| 2011-04-17 | |
NEW DELHI: The owners of a hijacked ship said on Saturday that they were perplexed by the continuing detention of some of their crew members by Somali pirates despite their paying a multimillion-dollar ransom.
All 15 crew members, held hostage after September's attack, were Indian, Sunil Puri, a New Delhi-based spokesman for Interglobal, a United Arab Emirates-based company that owns the ship, told the AP. On Friday, Hassan Farah said pirates in stronghold of Haradhere in Somalia had taken a collective decision not to release the Indian crew members. Puri called the pirates' action "unprecedented," and said that it wasn't immediately clear why the pirates acted as they did. "We are still trying to ascertain why that happened. We kept our side of the bargain. We don't know why they weren't released. This is an unprecedented situation. In the past they have always kept their word," Puri said. While Puri did not reveal the amount of ransom paid, pirates are receiving an average of $5 million to release ships and crew, and a ransom in that ballpark was believed to have been paid on Friday. The Indian navy has seized around 120 pirates, mostly from Somalia, over the past few months. Last month the Indian navy captured 61 pirates when they attacked a naval ship. Indian warships have been escorting merchant ships as part of international anti-piracy surveillance in the Indian Ocean area since 2008. | |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #2 India could simply declare war on somalia, invade, kill thousands of somalians in unlimited war, sink every ship and boat that was not a captured ship, destroy all the port facilities,tell the UN to get bent, then leave Pakistan (and China) would like that. And I wouldn't be too sure on the "and leave" part - at least on a set schedule. On the bright side, it'd be a repeat of the 'flypaper strategy'. So could any other country with a real leader. Any non-Western country. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2011-04-17 17:45 |
| #1 The idea that somalia has no government is a legal fiction promoted by l;iberal butt lickers. India could simply declare war on somalia, invade, kill thousands of somalians in unlimited war, sink every ship and boat that was not a captured ship, destroy all the port facilities,tell the UN to get bent , then leave.So could any other country with a real leader. |
| Posted by: dunce 2011-04-17 01:48 |