ATAKA: Thirty-four Egyptian fishermen made a triumphant homecoming on Sunday after escaping from a gang of Somali pirates who held them captive for four months on the high seas.
Hundreds of relatives and well-wishers gathered at the tiny fishing harbor of Ataka near Suez to welcome the fishermen, who told of being mistreated and almost starved by their captors.
“This is a story of Egyptian heroism, the Red Sea director of the fishermen’s trade union, Bakri Abul Hassan, told reporters.
When the two fishing boats’ rusty hulls appeared on the horizon, a marching band struck up and whirling dervishes danced for the crowd on the harbor, where banners proclaimed: “Welcome to the sons of Egypt, the heroic fishermen.
The crew of the Ahmad Samar and the Momtaz I were seized in mid-April off the Somali coast, where pirates have attacked scores of vessels on one of the world’s busiest maritime trade routes.
“This is the happiest day of my life, said Ismail Abdessalam, the father of one of the fishermen, while Sayyed Sobhi, a 20-year-old fisherman could hardly contain his “joy to be back home after months of misery and mistreatment.
After a four-month ordeal, the fishermen made a daring escape on August 13 when they managed to disarm their captors and seized eight of them, locking them up in the refrigerated holds of the boats as they made their way back to Egypt.
The Egyptian authorities removed the pirates from the vessels and detained them when they entered territorial waters, one of the fishermen said.
The authorities have said that the pirates would be treated “in accordance with international law.
The sailors said they had been mistreated by their captors and deprived of food and drink.
“The pirates wanted to starve us to death. They gave us rice infested with vermin and we were unable to get a bath all this time, said Mohammed Tolba El-Hebabi.
The world’s naval powers have deployed dozens of warships to the lawless waters off Somalia to stop the pirates who attacked more than 130 merchant ships last year, a rise of more than 200 percent over 2007, according to the International Maritime Bureau.
Egypt s state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper said earlier this month that one of the country s main security agencies played a key role in the operation to free the fishermen.
Agents convinced the pirates that a ransom payment was about to be made when in fact the money was being used to pay Somali clansmen to use force to free the fishermen, the paper said.
The owner of one of the boats, Hassan Khalil, reportedly traveled to the breakaway Somali province of Puntland with the so-called ransom but actually used it to pay clansmen to turn on the pirates.
Khalil refused to say if he had paid a ransom. It s none of your business. It is between God and us, he told AFP.
Naim Ibrahim Mohamed, a fisherman on the Momtaz I, denied any outside involvement in the two crews release.
One day we agreed to free ourselves. The decision was taken when the pirates translator told us: Noone will come to release you. Your situation is getting worse , Mohamed said.
We managed to get hold of their weapons. Some were asleep but each of us fought for his life. We were not afraid of dying, he said, adding: Egypt didn t do anything. -AFP
