After more than five months in captivity, Pakistani survivors of the hijacked oil tanker Honour 25 have been transferred to Garowe, the capital of Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland State region, as Islamabad works to bring them home, the Foreign Office said Thursday.
Families of the Pakistani crew members of the oil tanker Honour 25 during a protest calling for the safe return of their loved ones, in Karachi, Pakistan [File: Akhtar Soomro/Reuters]
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The Palau-flagged MT Honour 25 was seized off Puntland State on April 21 while carrying 17 crew members, including 10 Pakistanis. Puntland State forces recovered the tanker this week after pirates killed five sailors — among them three Pakistanis — and wounded four others.
Foreign Office spokesperson Sajjad Haider Khan confirmed the deaths of the three Pakistanis before providing an update on the surviving crew members.
“The surviving crew members were initially brought ashore at Bandar Beyla and now safely brought to the city, which is known as Garove, where the injured are being treated,” he said in the opening remarks of his weekly news briefing.
Three of the four injured sailors are Pakistani nationals, Khan said.
The statement was the first confirmation that the survivors had been moved from Bandar Beyla, the coastal town where Puntland State forces took them after securing the tanker. Pakistan said on Wednesday that the injured crew members were receiving treatment at a nearby hospital and that officials from its embassy in Djibouti were travelling to the town to help them.
Khan said Islamabad was coordinating with Somali authorities and other stakeholders “to facilitate medical care for the injured, repatriation of the mortal remains, and safe return of the surviving Pakistani crew members.”
He named the three Pakistanis killed as Rafiullah Khan, Syed Kashif Umar and Mahmood Ahmed Ansari.
Puntland State maritime police said Tuesday that pirates had killed the five crew members before the operation to retake the tanker began. The dead also included an Indian and a Myanmar national, while an Indian sailor was among those wounded.
Puntland State authorities said the vessel had been secured and suspected pirates detained, bringing to an end the crew’s ordeal since April.
During the prolonged captivity, relatives of the Pakistani sailors repeatedly urged Islamabad to intervene. The crew had also warned through a Pakistani rights group that their captors threatened to kill hostages if security forces tried to storm the tanker.
The government has not announced when the surviving Pakistani crew members will return or when the bodies of those killed will be repatriated.
