A Kenyan police officer, second left, stands guard among crew members of the Greek vessel Centauri,...
A Kenyan police officer, second left, stands guard among crew members of the Greek vessel Centauri, hijacked by Somalia pirates off the Somali coast and released Thursday Nov. 27, 2008 with all 25 Filipino crew unharmed after more than two months in the hands of pirates, after it docked at Mombasa Port Kenya, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2008. A European Union flotilla will begin anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia next week, the EU's foreign policy chief said Wednesday. The six warships and three maritime reconnaissance aircraft will replace a NATO naval force that has been patrolling the region and escorting cargo ships carrying relief aid to Somalia since the end of October. (AP Photo)
(AP)
For more than two months, Somali pirates and their hostages aboard a Greek cargo ship played cards, caught fish under the blazing sun, and swapped tales of home. By the time all 25 hostages were released unharmed last week, the pirates even made one of the captives a startling offer: Would he like to join them?
"Of course I said no. I was praying every day to be free," said crewman Edmundo Capatar, 32, the day after the ship docked in the Kenyan port of Mombasa.
"But I learned a little Somali. I talked a little to some of them. One said his whole family died in the war, that is why he became a pirate," Capatar said.
The Greek-owned Centauri and its Filipino crew was one of 40 ships seized this year by Somali pirates. More than 300 sailors remain hostage, including the crews of a Saudi supertanker holding more than $100 million of crude oil and a Ukrainian vessel loaded with tanks and small arms.
The raiders prey on a vital shipping route for world trade and oil and gas, netting more than $30 million in ransoms along Africa's longest and most lawless coast. The crumbling Somali government, which is losing a civil war against an Islamic insurgency, has no forces to punish the pirates.
An international naval coalition patrols the 2.5 million square miles of dangerous waters, but they have a limited mandate. Most pirate attacks are over in minutes, before warships can intervene.
On the night of Sept. 17, a watchman aboard the Centauri noticed the stars shining off the wake of the pirates' small vessel and sounded the alarm. The Centauri sped up and began to swerve, trying to throw off the attackers. The alarm sent the frightened crew tumbling from their beds.
The Centauri was moving too slowly, weighed down by its cargo of salt. Within five minutes of the first sighting, two boatloads of pirates armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades had swarmed aboard on makeshift ladders.
John Lazarou, the ship's Greek manager, was in Bangladesh that night and remembers being awakened by a panicked phone call from two crew members. Lazarou said the helpless sensation he felt was worse than all the disasters he had ever lived through — including shipwrecks and engine fires.
