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Somali pirates free French yacht
11/04/2008 13:24 - (SA)
Paris - The 30-strong crew of a luxury French yacht have been freed without incident a week after pirates took them hostage off Somalia, President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said in a statement on Friday.
France dispatched a warship and special forces to the region after the pirates stormed the three-mast boat in the Gulf of Aden last Friday. It was not immediately clear if they had played any part in the release of the crew.
"The president expresses his deep gratitude to the French armed forces and all the state services, which enabled a rapid and peaceful solution to this hostage-taking," the Elysee statement said.
Sarkozy was due to meet relatives of the crew at 17:00 and his office said it would give more details about their release afterwards.
Kidnappers 'treat' captives well
The foreign ministry said the crew, 22 of whom were French and the rest mainly Ukrainian and Korean, would be repatriated as soon as possible.
The pirates had sailed the yacht, the Ponant, to the Somali coast, eventually mooring the vessel at Garacade, near the town of Eyl. French officials said earlier this week they believed the group wanted a ransom and were not terrorists.
Piracy was lucrative off lawless Somalia and most kidnappers treated their captives well in anticipation of a good ransom. It was not clear if any ransom was paid in this case.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in a statement on Friday that he wanted to see a crackdown on piracy in the region, with the United Nations getting more involved in the struggle.
"The international community must mobilise for a determined fight against acts of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and off the Somali coast," he said, adding that France had already escorted humanitarian shipments headed for Somalia.
French officials had warned that it might take weeks to secure the release of the Ponant crew, saying that previous hostage crises in the region took on average 40 days to resolve.
The Ponant was owned by the Compagnie des Iles du Ponant and was heading from the Seychelles to the Mediterranean Sea when it was hijacked. It could hold 64 passengers, but had no holidaymakers aboard when the pirates struck.
- Reuters
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