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NAIROBI, Kenya — Eleven sailors from Asia and Iran held hostage by Somali pirates for three and a half years were freed on Saturday and are safe in Kenya, according to mediators who helped secure their freedom.
NAIROBI, Kenya — Eleven sailors from Asia and Iran held hostage by Somali pirates for three and a half years were freed on Saturday and are safe in Kenya, according to mediators who helped secure their freedom.
The sailors, who had been held in dire conditions, beaten and tortured, are seven men from Bangladesh, one Indian, one Iranian, and two men from Sri Lanka.
The sailors, who had been held in dire conditions, beaten and tortured, are seven men from Bangladesh, one Indian, one Iranian, and two from Sri Lanka.
“Given what they have been through, they are all in good health,” John Steed, a former British Army colonel who has spent years helping negotiate their release, told Agence France-Presse after arriving in Kenya with the men on a flight from Somalia.
Their boat, the Malaysian-flagged container ship MV Albedo, was captured in November 2010 but sank in rough seas last July off the Somali coast. The surviving crew had been held on shore by the pirates since then, United Nations officials said.
Their boat, the Malaysian-flagged container ship MV Albedo, was captured in November 2010 but sank in rough seas last July close to the Somali coast. The surviving crew had been held on shore by the pirates since then, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia said in a statement. During their captivity, one Indian colleague was shot by the pirates in an argument, and four others from Sri Lanka drowned.
Seven other Pakistani crew members were released in 2012 after a businessman paid their ransom.
Details of how the 11 men were freed on Saturday have not been provided, but no ransom is believed to have been paid. United Nations officials said the sailors would be repatriated to their home countries over the coming days.
“The crew members and their families have suffered unimaginable distress,” Nicholas Kay, the United Nations special envoy to Somalia, said in a statement.
“The crew underwent the trauma of piracy, their ship sinking, and then being held ashore in very difficult conditions.”
Thirty-eight other sailors from different boats remained captive, Mr. Kay said.
“While we have seen a significant reduction in piracy off the coast of Somalia in recent years, I remain deeply concerned that 38 other crew members are still being held hostage,” Mr. Kay added.
Pirate attacks off Somalia have been greatly reduced in recent years, with international fleets patrolling the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean and armed guards posted aboard many vessels.
At their peak in January 2011, Somali pirates held 32 boats and 736 hostages, some onshore and others on their vessels.
“I call on those who continue to detain these crew members to release them without further delay so they can rejoin their families and loved ones,” Mr. Kay said.
On Thursday, three Kenyan aid workers held hostage by pirates in northern Somalia for close to two years were also freed unharmed.
The workers, two men and a woman, had been traveling in a convoy guarded by armed police officers in July 2012 when they were seized by gunmen in an ambush near the city of Galkayo in the autonomous Puntland region of northern Somalia.
All three Kenyans were flown back to Nairobi on Saturday along with the sailors, and were welcomed at the airport by emotional families who embraced the aid workers, several in tears, Mr. Steed said.
In the past, foreign special forces have undertaken raids to rescue their citizens. In 2012, elite United States commandos swooped in to Galkayo by helicopter to free an American aid worker and her Danish colleague, who had been held for three months.
Those left behind come largely from nations without the capabilities to undertake rescue efforts.
