Hijacked Stolt Valor crew members return home

After spending a two-month horrifying time swinging between life and death, five of the 18 Indian captive crew members of the Japanese-owned chemical tanker MV Stolt Valor reached Mumbai on Monday.

The ecstatic crew members arrived here safely from Muscat around 5 am include Estidore Fernandes and Alistair Fernandes of Goa, Om Prakash Shukla of Mumbai, and Navid Borundkar of Ratnagiri, said National Union of Seafarers of India (NUSI) spokesman Sunil Nair.

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The remaining 14 Indian crewmembers including the captain of the ship, Prabhat Goyal are in Muscat and will reach Mumbai later on Monday.

MT Stolt Valor, which had 22 crew members including 18 Indians and carrying a cargo of 23,818 tonnes of oil products, was hijacked by Somali pirates off the Yemen coast on Sep 15 while it was heading for Mumbai from the Suez Canal.

The pirates took the hijacked vessel to the Somali coast and demanded a ransom of $6 million for the release. However, they released the ship on Nov 16 after negotiations between pirates and ship owners and reportedly collecting $2.5 million from the ship’s owners.

At a press conference held today, General Secretary, NSUI, Abdul Gani appreciated the media for their continuous support and urged them not to call pirates as Sindabad The Sailor, instead “maritime terrorists” which they actually are.

In the wake of increasing incidence of piracy in the Gulf of Aden off the Somali coast, the Indian Government has decided to send another warship along with the INS Tabar, which is currently in the Gulf of Aden for Anti-Piracy Surveillance and Patrol Operations, deployed since November 2 following repeated cases of hijacking of Indian ships and their crew by heavily armed Somali pirates.