Do More With Reuters
Partner Services

Crew onboard hijacked ship are "desperate" - paper

Sat Jul 4, 2009 6:35pm IST
 
Email | Print | | Single Page
[-] Text [+]

BERLIN (Reuters) - The 24 hostages on board a German ship that was hijacked by Somali pirates in April have no more water, food or medicine, a German weekly reported, citing comments emailed by the captain of the ship.

The 20,000-tonne container vessel, Hansa Stavanger, was captured about 400 miles off the southern Somali port of Kismayu on April 4.

"We just cannot carry on," the captain wrote in an email to his wife on Friday, the first sign of life in over three weeks, Der Spiegel magazine reported.

"We have no water, no food and no medicine," he wrote.

The Hamburg shipping company Leonhardt & Blumberg that owns the Hansa Stavanger was not available to comment on the authenticity of the emails.

Piracy has flourished in recent months off the busy Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean shipping lanes and seaborne gangs have seized several cargo ships and collected tens of millions of dollars in ransom for the safe release of crews and cargoes.

The captain of the Hansa Stavanger wrote in one email that the pirates had become impatient when the negotiations with the Hamburg shipping company that owns the vessel stalled at the end of April. The pirates threatened to kill the crew held hostage.

"They put tape over my eyes and dragged me onto the deck ... They shouted and sent bullets flying close next to my head."

Five Germans, three Russians, two Ukrainians, and 14 Filippinos are believed to be on board on the ship.  Continued...

REUTERS WEEKEND

Glory for Big B

Lifetime award for Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan.  Video 

'Trashy' Affair

Beijing man turns unwanted plastic bags into kites.  Video 

 
The new Droid phone, a Motorola Inc. and Verizon Wireless phone based on Google Inc's Android 2.0 system, is shown at a media event in New York October 28, 2009.REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Motorola Droid

Not the Droid you’re looking for?  Blog 

View of the Casa Poporului or House of the People, now the Parliament Palace, in downtown Bucharest November 6, 2009.  REUTERS/Bogdan Cristel
Travel Postcard

48 hours in Bucharest for architecture buffs.  Full Article 

 
Russian Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin poses with his G20 colleagues and central bank leaders during the family photo at the G20 Finance Ministers meeting at a hotel in St. Andrews, Scotland. REUTERS/POOL New
Pledge to support economies

G20 financial leaders pledged to prepare strategies to end emergency support for their economies, but to keep the aid flowing until recovery was assured.  Full Article | Related Story 

Photo
Miss England gives up crown over brawl reports Friday, 6 Nov 2009 

LONDON (Reuters) - Beauty pageant winner Miss England gave up her title on Friday after reports she had been involved in a nightclub brawl with another beauty queen.  Full Article