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Pirates free Belgian ship's crew after ransom paid
Somali pirates have released the entire crew of a Belgian ship seized 10 weeks ago after a ransom was paid, the Belgian government said yesterday.
The 10 crew members of the Pompei dredger were in good health and were sailing the ship to an unidentified harbour where it will arrive
in a few days, the government said. The crew members will then fly home to their families.
Defence Minister Pieter De Crem told a news conference that the ship's owners paid a ransom to release the ship and crew. He declined to say how much, but said pirates had demanded $8m (4.84m).
A plane dropped the money into the sea near the Belgian vessel on Saturday, Mr De Crem said. About 10 pirates on board abandoned the ship early yesterday.
The ship, its Dutch captain and crew of two Belgians, three
Filipinos and four Croatians were seized on April 18 a
few hundred miles north of the Seychelles islands as they were sailing from Dubai to South Africa.
The pirates took the ship to the Somali coast where they and the crew stayed on board.
Belgian officials said the ship's owners negotiated the release with a middle man who sometimes passed on messages from the captain.
The pirates even contacted the crew's family members once to prove that they were still alive.
Mr De Crem said the government had considered military intervention to seize the ship, but decided that it was "not desirable" because it could endanger the crew.
Despite international navy patrols, piracy has exploded in the Gulf of Aden and around Somalia's 1,900-mile coastline. Pirates are able to operate freely because Somalia has had no effective government in nearly 20 years.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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