KARACHI, Pakistan - A group of 22 South Asian and Egyptian men held
captive by Somali pirates for nearly a year received an emotional
welcome in this southern port city Thursday after payment of a $2.1
million ransom secured their release.
Relatives burst into tears
as they greeted the freed merchant navy personnel from the MV Suez
ship. Onlookers showered them with rose petals.
The crew included
11 Egyptians, six Indians, four Pakistanis and one Sri Lankan. The
captain of the ship was Wasee Ahmed, a Pakistani whose 11-year-old
daughter, Laila, hugged him eagerly as both wept.
"The support of the whole nation helped us," the captain said.
The
Ansar Burney Trust, a Pakistani organization that is trying to
eliminate human trafficking, handled negotiations with the pirates. It
was aided by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, a powerful political party
in Karachi.
No other government was involved in the negotiations,
said Sarim Burney, an official with the trust and brother of Ansar
Burney, a well-known human rights activist in Pakistan.
The
pirates demanded $30 million at one point. The ransom money was raised
through private donations from Pakistanis and paid through a shipping
company whose name is being kept confidential, according to Sarim
Burney.
The Indians, Egyptians and Sri Lankan were expected to
leave later Thursday for their respective countries, said Ishratul
Ebad, the governor of Sindh province in southern Pakistan.
Somali
pirates are holding hijacked hostages and ships for longer periods as
negotiations for increasingly higher ransoms drag out. The average
ransom paid for a ship and crew is now nearly $5 million. Pirates
currently hold about 26 ships and 600 crew.
Somalia hasn't had a
functioning government since 1991, allowing piracy to flourish off the
Horn of Africa nation. International militaries patrol the region,
particularly near the Gulf of Aden, but pirates now attack hundreds of
miles off East Africa, an area that is too big to effectively patrol. AP
