Mogadishu - Somali pirates Tuesday demanded a ransom for the
release of German couple they kidnapped from a yacht sailing in the
pirate-infested Gulf of Aden.
'The foreigners invaded our waters,' a spokesperson for the group
holding the middle-aged couple from Southern Germany said.
The couple were abducted early Monday as they sailed through the
Gulf of Aden on a trip from Egypt to Thailand.
Early reports had claimed that four Europeans were kidnapped,
including a pilot and a young child, but the pirates said they were
holding only the couple.
The district commissioner of the Las Korey area Yusuf Jama Dabeed
said that troops from the semi-autonomous region of Puntland found
the yacht abandoned on the shore, but that by that point the
kidnappers had taken their captives into the mountains.
It is believed that the kidnapping was an opportunistic action
that involved both pirates and local fishermen.
The German Foreign Office said that it was attempting to find more
information on the kidnapping.
Piracy is rife off the coast of the Horn of Africa nation. Cargo
ships and luxury yachts have been targeted by heavily-armed pirates,
who then hold the crew ransom.
Puntland authorities have in the past criticized the practice of
paying ransoms, saying it only encourages more piracy.
The most high-profile case in recent months involved the capture
of a luxury French yacht in April. French troops rescued the hostages
and captured six of the pirates, although another six are believed to
have escaped.
The UN Security Council recently approved incursions into Somali
waters to curb piracy, which the weak transitional government,
currently engaged in countering a bloody insurgency, is powerless to
prevent.
Somalia has been in a state of anarchy since the overthrow of
dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
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