French navy trails yacht seized by pirates (Reuters)
Kidnapping is mean and everything, but this article had me in hysterics.
PARIS (Reuters) - The French navy continued to trail a luxury yacht off the Somali coast on Sunday, two days after pirates stormed the boat and took its 30 crew hostage, French Defense Minister Herve Morin said.
"We are still in this phase of the pirates carrying on sailing with us following them at a distance," Morin told Europe 1 radio, adding that he expected the hijackers would eventually make land somewhere in Somalia.
Kidnapping and piracy are lucrative businesses in lawless Somalia and most Somalis treat their captives well in anticipation of a good ransom.
Local authorities said the boat was off Garaad, a fishing town in central Somalia, after being seized by pirates from Harardheere. From that port, privateers have made Somalian waters among the world's most dangerous.
"We do not have the military capacity to combat pirates. They have fast boats, sophisticated weapons and the ransom money from other vessels they seized in the past enabled them to be strong," Ahmed Said Ow-Nur, ports minister for the semi-autonomous Puntland region, told Reuters by phone.
No demands had been received so far, he said.
Pirates stormed the French-owned yacht, the Ponant, on Friday as it was sailing through the Gulf of Aden, off Puntland. They then took the boat south towards the Somali coast.
The French defense ministry said 22 of the crew were French, including six women. The rest were believed to be Ukrainian and Korean. The boat's owner, the Compagnie des Iles du Ponant, told anxious relatives on Sunday they were well.
"The crew has not been ill-treated. They are all together and were able to have breakfast and take showers this morning," the mother of one of the hostages told France Info radio, relating what company officials had told her.
The crew had been sailing from the Seychelles to the Mediterranean without passengers when they were attacked.
French media showed navy pictures on Sunday of the pirates sitting on the deck of the Pontant, which was towing the two motorboats they had apparently used to launch their attack.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Saturday France wanted to resolve the crisis peacefully.
"All channels of discussion are open to try to resolve this issue without using force," he said. "We are putting the emphasis on protecting the life of those on board."
France has 2,900 troops stationed in Djibouti, which borders Somalia and lies on the coast. It also has a naval force in the Indian Ocean and has diverted at least one warship to the area.
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