MOGADISHU (AFP) — The French military on Sunday kept up its surveillance of a hijacked French luxury cruise yacht with about 30 crew as it was taken toward a pirate lair off northeast Somalia, officials said.
French Defence Minister Herve Morin said that there could be no military intervention unless there was a guarantee for the safety of the crew, 22 French nationals and about 10 Ukrainians.
Somali officials said that 32-cabin yacht, the Ponant, which was seized on Friday, appeared to be heading for the Garaad area off the autonomous and wild region of Puntland.
"We are getting information that the pirates are now moving towards southern coastal area of Garaad where I believe they will stay," said Abdullahi Said Aw-Yusuf, local government official in the area.
"They are well-armed pirates from Puntland region, so they cannot go far beyond Garaad," he added.
The company that owns the yacht said on Sunday that its crew were thought to be unharmed. "All we know is that they are well, that they are safe and sound," said a spokesman for the French shipping firm CMA-CGM.
The father of one crew member, Thibaut Garrec, 20, called on the French state to "use its diplomatic levers" to secure their safe release.
"If that means paying a ransom, then let's find a way, but we have to free them," said Ronan Garrec.
But France had still to receive any ransom or other demand from the hijackers -- with authorities playing a waiting game despite activating emergency anti-pirate planning which can involve the mobilisation of elite special forces.
The French defence minister told Europe 1 radio on Sunday that French authorities were monitoring the yacht "from a distance using military means that enable them to have a perfect observation and knowledge of the situation."
He said there had been no communication from the pirates.
Morin said any order to launch a military operation "cannot be taken unless there is certainty that this will happen in secure conditions that preserve the integrity of the crew."
Photos of the yacht shown by French media have shown the pirates on the bridge and of the Ponant and on two zodiac boats being towed by the yacht.
Amphibious assault and other special operations arms of the French navy are available under French anti-pirate emergency planning, as well as the French Gendarmerie's elite maritime hostage rescue unit.
Pirate attacks are frequent off Somalia's 3,700-kilometre (2,300-mile) coastline, prompting the International Maritime Bureau to advise sailors not to venture closer than 200 nautical miles to its shore.
Somalia, which lies at the mouth of the Red Sea on a major trade route between Asia and Europe via the Suez Canal, has not had a functional government since the 1991 ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
The French navy has been called on in recent months to escort World Food Programme boats through Somali waters, after two of the agency's boats were stolen.
The three-masted 850-tonne Ponant, equipped with lounges, bar and restaurant, had been due to host a cruise between Alexandria in Egypt and Valletta in Malta on April 21-22, its Marseille-based owner said.
Garrec's mother Valerie said her son telephoned on Wednesday to tell her he was entering dangerous waters.
"He
told us he was in a pirate zone. We thought that sounded dangerous. But
we had no idea we would be getting a call two days later to say he was
taken hostage."
SOURCE: AFP, April 6, 2008