Members of the crew of Le Ponant are ferried to a French naval ship after being freed by pirates yesterday (Photo: The Telegraph)From The New Scotsman:
THE water was still, the sky cloudless and the 12-man crew, Kenyans and Sri Lankans, were relaxed after their Sunday morning cup of tea in February last year as they returned from taking food aid to north Somalia.
Then they spotted a speck on the horizon. Suddenly realising that a boat was heading right at them, they changed course and put the throttle down.
After an hour-long chase, the pirates' "mother ship" dropped two fibreglass speedboats, which raced up alongside. Each held half-a-dozen young Somalis armed with pistols, machineguns and rocket-launchers.
The terrified sailors held their hands high in surrender as the pirates boarded, firing one warning shot. "They said, 'Don't be frightened, you are just poor people like us. We won't kill anyone unless you disobey us'," recounted a Kenyan mariner, James Sambi, who asked for a false name to be used in case of repercussions with employers.
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