Gamal Nkrumah sounds out the authorities on the ordeal of the crew and their families of the ill-fated Blue Star captured by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden The high seas reveal as well as conceal the depths of the anguish of relatives of Egyptian crew members taken hostage by Somali pirates. The incident has brought home the gravity of the piracy problem. Piracy is a challenge that the Egyptian authorities are now paying closer attention to. All concerned parties are well aware that it may have serious repercussions on the national interest. First, there is a danger of the possibility of a further reduction in revenues accruing from tolls of ships passing through the Suez Canal -- Egypt's most lucrative foreign currency earner -- which has already been hard hit by the global financial crisis. And, secondly, because the Egyptian public has become deeply sensitised about the challenge of piracy in the Arabian and Red seas. The distress of the victims' relatives was palpable as they demonstrated and protested in several venues to voice their anger and agony. Some 15 heavily armed Somali pirates furnished with sophisticated communications equipment kidnapped a cargo vessel, Blue Star, with a crew of 28 Egyptians in the Gulf of Aden on 1 January. The relatives of the crew are distraught and have demonstrated twice so far to protest against the treatment of their loved ones. However, one of the Egyptian hostages aboard the merchant vessel, the engineer Ibrahim Othman, told his family over the phone that his Somali pirate captors have treated him and his fellow Egyptians kindly. He said they were given adequate supplies of food and water and that sanitation and hygienic conditions were satisfactory. He added that they were permitted to exercise and walk on the deck of the merchant vessel. "I am most concerned about the psychological state of the crew. The pirates permit the crew to speak by the mobile phones of the pirates themselves and at times of their own choosing. Even though the crew are in good physical health, they are emotionally distraught and several captives are suffering from symptoms of stress and anxiety. It is their mental state and psychological wellbeing that is at stake rather than their physical condition that concerns me at the moment," Blue Star owner Abdel-Rahman El-Awwa told Al-Ahram Weekly. Three-way negotiations are currently underway between the owners of the merchant vessel, representatives of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and the Somali pirates. Neither the owner of the cargo vessel nor the Egyptian authorities were willing to disclose the exact sum agreed upon as ransom with the pirates. Estimates leaked to the press speculate that the ransom demanded by the Somali pirates ranges from between $100,000 to more than $4 million. El-Awwa told the Weekly that the pirates decided to hike up the ransom when they realised from television satellite channels that the release of the Egyptian crew was important for Egypt. "When the pirates heard and saw Egyptian officials speaking on behalf of the crew and realised that the incident generated much public concern, they decided arbitrarily to raise the ransom. Initially they had agreed on a sum of around $1 million, but then after the talk show palaver they insisted on $4 million." El-Awwa refused to budge, and emphasised that once you give in to the demands of the pirates they would demand more. "That would lead to an increase in the incidence of piracy and is a form of extortion. That is unacceptable." "We are now waiting for the pirates to choose a secure venue in order for us to hand out the ransom and for them to release the Egyptian crew," El-Awwa explained. He added that the cargo vessel, flying under the flag of the Caribbean island-nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis was captured in the Gulf of Aden as it passed through the Bab Al-Mandab Strait that separates Yemen from the Horn of Africa. However, El-Awwa would not discuss the terms of negotiations because he said he would not want to jeopardise the lives and wellbeing of the Egyptian crew. "We want to secure their release. That is the most important issue before us now," he said. Oblivious to the coming storm, the relatives of the hostages are at the moment anxious about the wellbeing of their captured relatives. Yesterday, they staged a protest rally at the Press Syndicate, downtown Cairo. Earlier this week, they demonstrated in front of the Foreign Ministry and demanded the release of their relatives pleading with the authorities to step up efforts to secure the release of the captives. The Egyptian authorities and El-Awwa himself are on the whole cautiously optimistic that a speedy and amicable resolution of the crisis would be arrived at soon. "The ship was carrying 6,000 tonnes of urea fertilisers and we are currently negotiating the terms of the release of the Egyptian crew," said Ambassador Ahmed Rizk, assistant foreign minister for consular affairs. "We are doing our utmost to secure the release of the hostage crew without giving in to the pirates' demands," he added. Pirates captured another Egyptian ship with a crew of 25 last September. Again armed with state-of-the-art military and telecommunications equipment, the Somali pirates set their Egyptian hostages free after less than a month. The Egyptian authorities insisted that they did not have to pay a ransom for the release of those Egyptian nationals.
