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Pirates free Danish-owned tug
18/03/2008 14:24 - (SA)
Mogadishu - Somali pirates released a Danish-owned tugboat that was held for more than a month after a ransom was paid, local officials said on Tuesday.
The British captain, Irish engineer and four Russian crew aboard the Svitzer Korsakov were "safe and healthy," said Ahmed Said Aw-Nur, the fisheries and ports minister in Puntland, a semiautonomous region of northeast Somalia.
Aw-Nur told said that the ship was freed after its Danish owner "negotiated with the criminals and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for ransom".
A regional official, who asked that his name not be used because he was not authorised to speak to the media, said $700 000 was paid. Aw-Nur condemned the paying of ransom "because it can encourage more piracy".
Piracy already was increasingly common along Somalia's 3 000km coast, which was the longest in Africa and near key shipping routes connecting the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean.
International patrols
Pat Adamson, a London-based spokesperson for Svitzer, declined to comment on reports that a ransom had been paid.
Adamson said: "Seen from a Svitzer point of view it would be irresponsible to provide any details of the operational issues involved. It could encourage would-be pirates."
He said the ship was being escorted to "an appropriate port", but refused to say where.
The United States Navy had led international patrols to try to combat piracy in the region. Last year, the guided missile destroyer USS Porter opened fire to destroy pirate skiffs tied to a Japanese tanker.
Pirates seized more than two-dozen ships off the Somali coast last year.
The International Maritime Bureau, which tracked piracy, said in its annual report earlier this year that global pirate attacks rose by 10% in 2007, marking the first increase in three years as sea robbers made a strong comeback.
Wracked by more than a decade of violence and anarchy, Somalia did not have its own navy and a transitional government formed in 2004 with UN help had struggled to assert control.
- AP
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