Nairobi:
A British couple who had been kidnapped by Somali pirates and held in captivity in a remote, sweltering patch of central Somalia for more than a year was finally released, Somali officials said Sunday, apparently after a ransom was paid.
The couple, Paul and Rachel Chandler, were hijacked in October 2009 while sailing in a small yacht in the Indian Ocean in what they had described to friends as "the trip of a lifetime."
At a news conference on Sunday shortly after their release, Ms Chandler said, "We are happy to be alive, happy to be here, desperate to see our family, and so happy to be amongst decent, everyday people, Somalis, people from anywhere in the world who are not criminals, because we've been a year with criminals and that's not a very nice thing to be doing."
Somali elders said the couple's friends and relatives paid the pirates several hundred thousand dollars in ransom. The Chandlers said in earlier interviews, from captivity, that the pirates had whipped them and kept them apart from each other, in solitary confinement, for months. Ms Chandler is in her mid-50s and Mr Chandler is about 60.
They were released around midnight on Saturday in central Somalia, and flew to the capital, Mogadishu, on Sunday afternoon, where they met the prime minister of Somalia's weak transitional government. That government has little influence over the pirates, or much else in Somalia, though the prime minister quickly called a news conference and stood side by side with the Chandlers.
The "Transitional Federal Government of Somalia exerted every humanly possible effort to bring you back to your loved ones," Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed said.
The Chandlers looked thin but smiled brightly. Afterward, they flew to Nairobi.
Their ordeal seems to have been prolonged and complicated by the fact that they were not wealthy and had few valuable assets besides their 38-foot sailboat, which the pirates snatched and then abandoned off the coast of the Seychelles. Somali pirates, by their own admission, are in it for the money. Most cases are resolved and the hostages released once a ransom has been paid.
The Chandlers appear to have known of the dangers. Before their capture, the retired couple spent much of the previous several years sailing through the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, blogging regularly and occasionally mentioning the Somali pirates.
On October 23, 2009, a group of pirates stormed their sailboat, the Lynn Rival, as they were cruising from the Seychelles to Tanzania. The pirates stripped the sailboat clean of all valuables and pushed the Chandlers onto a hijacked freighter, known in the piracy business as a mother ship, which is used as a decoy to attack unsuspecting vessels and which allows the pirates to extend their range to more than 1,000 miles from shore. The Chandlers put out an S O S, but the naval ships in the area arrived too late.
The pirates then sailed to Xarardheere, a pirate den in central Somalia, and the Chandlers spent much of the next year in a small town near there. The pirates, one named Red Teeth, wanted $7 million, and when it was clear the Chandlers did not have access to that kind of money, the pirates became frustrated and internal arguments broke out over strategy.
In the end, a local Somali leader who had recently returned from the United States to set up a regional government in central Somalia helped smooth the way for more negotiations. Mohamed Aden, who is called president in his clan's area in central Somalia, had been asking the pirates for months to release the Chandlers for far less money than the pirates were expecting.
He said the pirates finally settled for a relatively small ransom because local elders and businessmen were putting increasing pressure on the pirates, who were getting worried that the Chandlers might die in captivity because of their age and the harsh conditions. "We told these guys that if the Chandlers died you will be hunted down," Mr Aden said. "They were worried."
Several people, including Somalis living in London, tried to help and cobbled together around $400,000 to pay off the pirates, Somali elders said, but that money was stolen by middlemen.
A new ransom was assembled and the Chandlers were handed over to Mr Aden's militia.
Mohammed Ibrahim contributed reporting from Mogadishu, Somalia.
The couple, Paul and Rachel Chandler, were hijacked in October 2009 while sailing in a small yacht in the Indian Ocean in what they had described to friends as "the trip of a lifetime."
At a news conference on Sunday shortly after their release, Ms Chandler said, "We are happy to be alive, happy to be here, desperate to see our family, and so happy to be amongst decent, everyday people, Somalis, people from anywhere in the world who are not criminals, because we've been a year with criminals and that's not a very nice thing to be doing."
Somali elders said the couple's friends and relatives paid the pirates several hundred thousand dollars in ransom. The Chandlers said in earlier interviews, from captivity, that the pirates had whipped them and kept them apart from each other, in solitary confinement, for months. Ms Chandler is in her mid-50s and Mr Chandler is about 60.
They were released around midnight on Saturday in central Somalia, and flew to the capital, Mogadishu, on Sunday afternoon, where they met the prime minister of Somalia's weak transitional government. That government has little influence over the pirates, or much else in Somalia, though the prime minister quickly called a news conference and stood side by side with the Chandlers.
The "Transitional Federal Government of Somalia exerted every humanly possible effort to bring you back to your loved ones," Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed said.
The Chandlers looked thin but smiled brightly. Afterward, they flew to Nairobi.
Their ordeal seems to have been prolonged and complicated by the fact that they were not wealthy and had few valuable assets besides their 38-foot sailboat, which the pirates snatched and then abandoned off the coast of the Seychelles. Somali pirates, by their own admission, are in it for the money. Most cases are resolved and the hostages released once a ransom has been paid.
The Chandlers appear to have known of the dangers. Before their capture, the retired couple spent much of the previous several years sailing through the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, blogging regularly and occasionally mentioning the Somali pirates.
On October 23, 2009, a group of pirates stormed their sailboat, the Lynn Rival, as they were cruising from the Seychelles to Tanzania. The pirates stripped the sailboat clean of all valuables and pushed the Chandlers onto a hijacked freighter, known in the piracy business as a mother ship, which is used as a decoy to attack unsuspecting vessels and which allows the pirates to extend their range to more than 1,000 miles from shore. The Chandlers put out an S O S, but the naval ships in the area arrived too late.
The pirates then sailed to Xarardheere, a pirate den in central Somalia, and the Chandlers spent much of the next year in a small town near there. The pirates, one named Red Teeth, wanted $7 million, and when it was clear the Chandlers did not have access to that kind of money, the pirates became frustrated and internal arguments broke out over strategy.
In the end, a local Somali leader who had recently returned from the United States to set up a regional government in central Somalia helped smooth the way for more negotiations. Mohamed Aden, who is called president in his clan's area in central Somalia, had been asking the pirates for months to release the Chandlers for far less money than the pirates were expecting.
He said the pirates finally settled for a relatively small ransom because local elders and businessmen were putting increasing pressure on the pirates, who were getting worried that the Chandlers might die in captivity because of their age and the harsh conditions. "We told these guys that if the Chandlers died you will be hunted down," Mr Aden said. "They were worried."
Several people, including Somalis living in London, tried to help and cobbled together around $400,000 to pay off the pirates, Somali elders said, but that money was stolen by middlemen.
A new ransom was assembled and the Chandlers were handed over to Mr Aden's militia.
Mohammed Ibrahim contributed reporting from Mogadishu, Somalia.
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