Somali Hijackers Refuse to Release UN Food Aid Ship

NAIROBI, Kenya, August 22, 2005 (ENS) - Pirates off the Somali coast are still holding a food aid ship chartered by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), its 10 member crew, and 850 tons of rice for victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami, eight weeks after seizing them. An agreement was hammered out earlier this month for their release, but the hijackers have not kept their part of the bargain, the UN agency said Friday.

“This has gone on too long,” said WFP Country Director Robert Hauser. He is urging Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to help end the problem peacefully.

This is the first time in WFP history that a ship carrying relief food has been hijacked.

Gunmen aboard speedboats seized the MV Semlow on June 27 between Harardhere and Hobyo, 300 kilometers (200 miles) northeast of Mogadishu, the Somali capital, and 60 kilometers (40 miles) off the coast. The vessel is registered in the Caribbean island nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The "X" on this map of Somalia shows the approximate location where the MV Semlow was seized by hijackers. (Map courtesy CIA World Factbook)

Under the pact, the hijackers were to release the ship and allow it to sail to the port of El Maan just north of Mogadishu within three days.

The WFP food was to be handed over to the Transitional Federal Government in El Maan to be distributed to communities in central Somalia.

The rice, donated by Germany and Japan, was intended to feed 27,000 survivors of last December’s tsunami and should still go to the people who need it most, Hauser said.

WFP sent two shipments of food to Somalia in the two weeks of August to ensure that its operations would continue and the hungry would not suffer because of the hijacking.

One shipment of 1,000 tons was offloaded in Berbera, Somaliland, in the north. Several days later, an additional 1,850 tons were offloaded from the same ship in Puntland, more than covering the Semlow’s 850 tons of rice that was originally destined for the 27,000 survivors.

Abdirizak Osman Samater, 9, was playing on a boat in the sea near the beach when the tsunami struck. He survived by running into the hills. (Photo by Maulid Warfa courtesy WFP)

Hauser said the WPF has heard from the ship’s agents that while food supplies for the crew were adequate, drinking water was rationed. Conditions for the crew, confined to the ship and held under duress, are undoubtedly difficult.

“It must be a terrible, and a very worrying ordeal for all 10 of them stuck on that ship still anchored 45 kilometers from the Somali coast,” he added. “The poor families of the crew have waited too long to see their loved ones safe.”

"As it drags through its eighth week, the story of the 10 man crew aboard the MV Semlow off Somalia, who were simply trying to bring food aid to a hungry nation, only sometimes makes headlines in their home countries," Hauser said.

Several acts of piracy have taken place in Somali waters and vessels are advised to keep at least 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the coast.

The country is ruled by rival warlords, and has been been without a permanent national government for more than 12 years.

Somali tsunami victims are kept alive by food aid in their hillside camps. (Photo by Francesco Broli courtesy WFP)

WFP intends to provide one million people in Somalia with food in 2005. They include 50,000 people in the central regions of Galgadud and South Mudug, which includes Harardhere.

The United States provides more than 50 percent of the UN World Food Program's commodities in Somalia. USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance channeled more than $1 million to Somali tsunami relief through United Nations agencies and nongovernmental organizations to provide shelter material, household kits, safe drinking water, and emergency medical supplies.

The tsunami disaster came at a time when 1.2 million people across Somalia were already suffering the effects of an ongoing humanitarian emergency caused by civil strife, drought and food insecurity.