KARACHI: Four injured Pakistani crew members of the MT Honour 25, a tanker hijacked by pirates off Somalia, were due to arrive in Karachi on Saturday after a deadly rescue operation, officials said. For the families of three colleagues who did not survive, the flight ends months of waiting that began with a hijacking and ended with a death notice.
Pakistan's ambassadors to Djibouti and Ethiopia saw off Usman Ghani, Aqeel Khan, Ameen bin Shams and Yasir Khan in Addis Ababa. They are traveling aboard Ethiopian Airlines flight ET 694, together with the remains of Rafi Ullah Khan, Syed Kashif Umer and Mahmood Ahmad Ansari.
Families waited months for news
The three dead men were among five crew members killed on the tanker before security forces retook it. The Puntland Maritime Police Force said the dead also included an Indian and a Myanmar national, and that they were killed early on Tuesday before its forces launched an operation to secure the vessel.
Pakistani media identified the three as second officer Kashif Umar, third engineer Mahmood Ansari and boiler worker Rafiullah. All three came from Karachi. Umar had spent about 25 years in the merchant navy. According to the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust, he said in his last conversation that food and drinking water aboard the tanker were running low.
Relatives had been sounding the alarm for months. Families in Karachi said in the summer that the men were short of drinking water, living on boiled rice and without medicine, and that contact with the ship had been cut since mid-June. They later took their appeal to the streets of Karachi to press the government to act.
When the deaths came, the families heard first from the ship itself. A Somali news outlet reported that Pakistan's Foreign Office spent part of Wednesday asking its mission for confirmation of names the families had already received from the crew, confirming them only in the afternoon.
Government promises support
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif phoned the family of one of the dead, and Radio Pakistan reported that he announced 12.5 million rupees (about $45,000) for each of the three bereaved families. Each family will also get a house, and the children will receive free education and healthcare. He made the announcement in a call with Azhan Kashif, the son of Syed Kashif Umer, telling the family they would not be left alone. No payment schedule has been made public.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar expressed condolences to the families and said the process of bringing the bodies home had been expedited. He said three other Pakistani crew members, Imran Ali, Yasin Muhammad and Syed Yousuf Hussain, remained aboard the vessel with the captain, and that the government was working for their return.
Officials have not publicly named the injured men's families or described their condition beyond saying the injured were receiving treatment.
The attack
According to the European Union's naval force, EUNAVFOR, the tanker was hijacked in April while sailing toward Mogadishu with about 17 crew and a cargo of oil products.
Survivors told the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust that the pirates opened fire on the captive crew as they fled under pressure from the rescue operation. The pirates also reportedly damaged the ship's steering system, leaving it unable to move on its own. The ship's second engineer, Hussain Yousuf, told ARY News that the injured remained aboard without medical help and that the bodies lay in the sun.
The Puntland force said it carried out the operation off Dharin-baar in Bandar Beyla District. Puntland authorities said 16 pirates were arrested and would face justice. Pakistan's Foreign Office said the survivors were brought ashore at Bandar Beyla, and the injured were treated at a hospital in Garowe.
In April, a video surfaced showing the Pakistani crew held in cramped, deteriorating conditions aboard the hijacked tanker. The deaths are among the most serious incidents of Somali piracy in several years.
