Bloomberg
By Peter S. Green
Saturday, June 06, 2009
The M/V Yenagoa Ocean is expected to arrive in Yemen this weekend, said Omar Jamal, director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. Jamal said that after a week of negotiations, he and Jeffrey Egbide, brother of the captain of the Yenagoa, Graham Egbegi, sent the money to the pirates through an Islamic Hawala money-transfer service.
The ship was captured as it traveled down the east coast of Africa from the Gulf. The pirates earlier demanded a $10 million ransom. Somali pirates are holding at least 15 foreign vessels and 210 crew members, according to Nairobi-based Ecoterra International, a group that tracks piracy.
“My brother is on the sea close to Yemen,” Egbide said. “He called my older sister in Chicago so we know he’s been released.”
The pirates holding the Yenagoa were members of the Siwaqron clan, and kept the ship in Habo, a port in Somalia’s northern Puntland region, said Jamal.
The ship’s owners had no money, he said, to pay for freeing the boat, and the pirates were simply worn down from almost a year of having to feed their hostages.
“The business of piracy is not as fruitful as it has been,” Jamal said. “We said you have been holding these people 10 months, there is no chance for you to get a penny anymore, so you might as well release them.”
The Nigerian Embassy in Washington couldn’t be reached for comment.
To contact the reporter on this story: Peter S. Green in New York at [email protected].