Saturday, February 14, 2009
All the rescued sailors and officers of Ukraine's special services, who were involved in the rescue operation, will be awarded, Yushchenko said at Kiev's Borispil Airport on Friday.
The Ukrainian president went to the airport to personally greet the rescued sailors, who arrived in the capital from Kenya this morning.
The ship was released five months later on February 4 after a multimillion-dollar ransom was paid and now has docked in Mombassa in Kenya.
Upon their return home, the captive sailors were treated like heroes, said one of the Ukrainian crew in Kiev, but "We were simply hostages and prisoners." It's a shame that we, adult men, could not defend ourselves. We had nothing to defend ourselves with. No one had thought of that," he regretted.
Meanwhile, Russian Consul in Kenya Armen Popov said on Friday that deceased captain of the ship Vladimir Kolobkov will be taken from Mombassa to St. Petersburg by a Swiss airlines flight on February 16.
"An autopsy was done this morning. The coroner confirmed that the captain died a natural death," Russian embassy doctor Artyom Aleinikov said.
Two other Russian crewmembers also took a flight to Ukraine together with the rest of the crew but will soon depart for St. Petersburg.
Remaining unresolved is the dispute over Faina's cargo--including 33 Soviet-made T-72 tanks, grenade launchers and other ammunition-- which the Israeli ship owner along with Ukrainian and Kenyan officials claim to belong to Kenya.
But diplomats in the region say it was bound to fall in the hand of rebels in Sudan's war-shattered Darfur region via Kenya, which helped broker a ceasefire between fighting sides in the neighboring country.
Source: KBC, Feb 14, 2009