Saturday, March 19, 2011

Somali Pirates Free Tunisian Hostages for $2 Million, TAP Says

Somali hijackers freed crew members of a Panama-flagged ship seized in November after they were paid a ransom of $2 million, the state-run Agence Tunis Afrique Presse reported.

The crew of the MV Hannibal II, which included 22 Tunisians and 10 others, was released and the ship is on its way to Djibouti, where a civilian plane will be sent to repatriate the Tunisians, the Tunis-based agency said, citing the Transport and Equipment Ministry.

The Hannibal was hijacked on Nov. 11 off the Gulf of Aden, and the pirates had initially asked for a ransom of 7.3 million euros ($10 billion), it said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jihen Laghmari via the Cairo newsroom at Jihen.laghmari@yahoo.fr

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mahmoud Kassem at mkassem1@bloomberg.net


Source: Bloomberg

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