Militia hijack ship and crew

A Kenyan-registered ship and its crew, hijacked off the northeastern coast of Somalia a month ago, are being held in the coastal town of Eyl, 150 km southeast of Garowe, capital of the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, a local journalist told IRIN. The MV Bahari Kenya had a crew of 25 Kenyans and five Italians on board when it was hijacked, the Kenyan ‘Sunday Nation’ newspaper reported on 26 August. The fishing vessel was hijacked, with help from local fishermen, by the militia assigned to guard it, Adan Abdirahman Dolar, editor of the Garowe-based ‘Nugal Times’, said. The ship reportedly had a permit issued by the Puntland administration of Abdullahi Yusuf to fish in Puntland waters. Dolar told IRIN that in such situations, “crews were usually brought before a kangaroo court and accused of illegal fishing”, then fined between US $100,000 to $200,000.

According to the Kenyan ‘Sunday Nation’, family members of the sailors had appealed to the Kenyan government to take action, when their relatives disappeared after the trawler set off more than a month ago in South Africa. The vessel’s chief engineer had telephoned relatives on 27 July and said more than 30 pirates armed with machine-guns had stormed the fishing trawler. The permanent secretary in the Kenyan Ministry of Transport and Communication, Francis Muthaura, told the Sunday Nation that various government agencies had been deployed to try and make contact with the militia to negotiate the release of the sailors.