Twelve members of the crew from the Mozambique fishing vessel VEGA-5, which was seized by Somali pirates off the Mozambique coast on 27 December last year, returned to their homes in Beira after having been rescued by the Indian Navy earlier last month. They had been detained in India to give evidence in court against their captors. A 13th crewmember, an Indonesian is presumed to have returned to Indonesia.
Twelve members of the crew from the Mozambique fishing vessel VEGA-5, which was seized by Somali pirates off the Mozambique coast on 27 December last year, returned to their homes in Beira after having been rescued by the Indian Navy earlier last month. They had been detained in India to give evidence in court against their captors. A 13th crewmember, an Indonesian is presumed to have returned to Indonesia.
Shortly after their capture the fishing vessel crew was forced to sail it to Somalia, where two Spanish crewmembers were taken ashore because the pirates believed only the Spanish government would pay ransom. The pirates claimed that Indonesia and Mozambique had shown no interest in freeing the seafarers, which the Mozambique government denied saying it never received any demand. The remaining crew, made up of 19 Mozambicans and an Indonesian remained with the vessel and were forced at gunpoint to sail it wherever the pirates ordered.
According to the survivors, the pirates headed to the Indian coast where they staged an attack on a patrolling Indian warship, the INS Kalpeni, after mistaking her for a civilian vessel. The Indian navy ship fired on the approaching skiffs, destroying them in the water and most pirates on board are thought to have died. The Vega-5 was then hit by a projectile from the Kalpeni and it was either then or later in the water that seven of their colleagues disappeared and are believed to have died. Twelve survivors were picked up by the Indian ship and taken ashore.
The incident is reminiscent of another in which a Yemeni fishing vessel that had been captured by pirates, was blown out of the water by an Indian Navy frigate. There were no apparent survivors and the Indian Navy announced it had successfully destroyed a pirate ship after being fired upon. Some days later a lone seafarer was picked up in the water, clinging to some timber, and was taken to hospital in Yemen. When he was able to talk he gave details of how the pirates had abandoned their fishing dhow but that the Indian ship fired on it anyway, leaving the pirate skiffs to escape in the confusion. The man was one of the original Yemeni crew and the sole survivor of what was only afterwards seen as a trigger-happy navy, with an apparent shoot first and ask questions later policy.
Had the survivor and his dead crew mates come from the western world, or had the crew from Vega-5 likewise come from the United States or Europe, no doubt there would have been a loud and urgent cry for a more measured and careful approach to such matters, but with both cases involving so-called ‘third world’ people, it is more easily swept away with the next tide
Discussion about this post