ISLAMABAD: Ten Pakistani nationals among the crew of a hijacked oil tanker are facing worsening shortages of food and drinking water, a rights group said on Monday, raising alarm over their safety as the standoff drags on with no clear resolution in sight.
The oil tanker, MT Honor 25, was seized on April 21 off the coast of Somalia. Its multinational crew includes 10 Pakistanis, four Indonesians, and one national each from India, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.
Ansar Burney Trust International, a Pakistani human rights group that established contact with the Somali pirates who hijacked the vessel, said while the sailors were safe, the humanitarian situation aboard the vessel was deteriorating.
“They are currently stable but if food and medical supplies are not delivered to them promptly, the situation may become difficult,” Ansar Burney, chairman of the Pakistani human rights organization, told Arab News.
One of the rights group members spoke with both pirates and Pakistani crew members, according to Burney.
“We appeal to the Government of Pakistan to take immediate steps for their release,” he added.
In an audio recording of a phone call between the Trust’s Shaheen Burney and a representative of the pirates, shared with Arab News by the family of a Pakistani sailor aboard the vessel, a pirate could be heard asking Shaheen to “pressure” the Pakistani government to negotiate with them.
The pirate representative claimed the crew are being restricted to one meal a day, while drinking water has run out at the vessel currently anchored near Eyl in the semi-autonomous Puntland region.
The Pakistani government earlier said it was monitoring the situation via its embassy in Djibouti, adding that Somali authorities had been “very cooperative.”
“Based on discussion with the Somali Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we have fair reason to believe that our crew members are safe and secure,” Foreign Office spokesperson Tahir Andrabi told reporters in Islamabad on Thursday.
However, the government’s stance has provided little solace to the families of the captives.
Last week, the family of a Pakistani sailor, Syed Hussain Yousaf, said they were in deep distress and that Yousaf’s 12-year-old daughter, Masooma, had stopped attending school since the hijacking.
“My children and I are going through a lot of difficulties. And I don’t know how my husband is doing there,” Yousaf’s wife Amreen told Arab News, adding that her husband had briefly managed to communicate to them that rations on the vessel had been exhausted.
Asked about her father, Masooma appealed to authorities: “I am begging you to bring my father back safely.”
