Loveday Morris and Charlie Hamilton
Thursday, April 08, 2010
ABU DHABI // MSV Faize Osmani, one of eight wooden dhows captured while trading between the UAE and Somalia last week, has been freed after a dramatic rescue in which one of its crew died and 10 suspected pirates were apprehended.
After a 10-day ordeal at the hands of the pirates, the dhow was used in an attempt to hijack MV Rising Sun, a Marshall Islands flagged cargo vessel, off the coast of Oman on Monday, the US Fifth Fleet confirmed yesterday.
The USS McFaul and the Omani warship Al Sharquiyah responded to a distress call from the cargo vessel, which was being attacked by small arms and rocket propelled grenades near Salalah, the capital of the southern Omani province of Dhofar.
“The navies said they would open fire on the dhow and the crew got scared and jumped in the water,” said Mohammed Azim, a Dubai resident whose brother owns the dhow.
“The crewman [who died] drank too much sea water and was declared dead by the US Navy.”
Instead of being hijacked for ransom, the small dhows that trade between the UAE and Somalia are used by the pirates as “mother ships” allowing them to launch attacks on large vessels in deeper waters than is possible on their skiffs.
Anil Wadhwa, the Indian Ambassador to Oman, said a post mortem would be carried out on the dead sailor, named as Sultan Ahmed Khijja, in Muscat today before his body is flown back to his family in Mumbai.
The UAE-owned dhow MSV Safina al Bayatiri, hijacked on April 2, was released on Saturday after pirates used the boat in a failed attempt to seize a Danish-flagged oil tanker, according to Adam Bhaya, the secretary general of the Vahanvatta Cargo Vessel Association in Gujarat, where many of the vessels are registered.
MSV Krishna Joyt, hijacked on March 26, was released earlier in the week, he added.
There were conflicting reports on the whereabouts of the remainder of Faize Osmani’s crew. Mr Azim said the dhow and its remaining crew were at sea heading to Muscat while the Omani navy said the boat is ashore in southern Oman.
“The crew are suffering from exhaustion and dehydration,” a spokesman for the navy said. “It is likely they will be fit to travel in two to three days.”
The Oman and US military did not release any details on whether any pirates were killed or injured in the recapture of the dhow.
Andrew Mwangura, of the East African Seafarer’s Assistance Programme, said that about five UAE-owned, Indian-registered vessels are still held by Somali pirates.
“Now that three of the Indian ships have been released, there are a total of around 22 or 24 ships which are in the hands of pirates.
“This means there are about 94 Indian hostages and about 340 hostages in total, plus Mr [Paul] and Mrs [Rachel] Chandler,” he said in reference to the British couple who have been held since October, when they were snatched while sailing from the Seychelles to Tanzania.
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