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A foreign ship and its crew, held for six months by Somali militiamen, escaped on Saturday from the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, a local journalist in Bosaso told IRIN on Monday.
The North Korean-registered, Greek-owned cargo ship was originally seized by over a dozen gunmen in speedboats last August off the coast of Puntland.
The ship and its crew, initially held at the coastal village of Bareda, 150 km east of Bosaso, had been moved to the coast near Bosaso a month ago, said the journalist. Most of the militia left the ship after its owners refused to pay the initial ransom demand of US $1 million. Only four militia were left and "two of those decided to go to Bosaso to buy qat [narcotic leaf] on Saturday", he said.
"The six crew members somehow managed to disarm the remaining two, and took off with the ship," the journalist told IRIN.
Other sources in Bosaso told IRIN that the ship was suspected to have dumped toxic waste in Somali territorial waters, and "that is why no one has officially come forward to claim ownership".
A number of ships have been hijacked off the Somali coast since the outbreak of civil war in Somalia in the 1990s. Many of them have been accused of illegally fishing, while others have been accused of dumping toxic waste.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
