'Maa, we are fine. Don’t worry'
Hijacked ship’s crew member tells his mother over phone
"Maa, we are fine. Don't worry," one of the crew of the hijacked ship talked to his mother in Chattogram this afternoon as the pirates allowed him to talk to the family through a satellite phone.
When the pirates attacked the ship, MV Abdullah, around 1:30pm (Bangladesh time) on Tuesday, it was around 500 nautical miles off the Somali coast, sailing from Maputo in Mozambique to Al Hamriyah in the UAE with 58,000 tonnes of coal.
The hijacked ship has anchored 20 miles off the Somalian port of Garacad, Bangladesh Merchant Marine Officers' Association (BMMOA) said around 1:00pm today.
His mother told The Daily Star that she felt a sigh of relief after receiving the call since there was no contact with her son since Tuesday afternoon when a group of pirates, who hijacked the ship off Somalia coast, took away all cellphones of the crew.
He made the call at 4:40pm, she said.
Quoting her son, she said upon reaching near Somalian coast this noon, the group of pirates who hijacked the ship got off the ship and another group got on board.
The new group allowed all the crewmen to go out of the ship's bridge where all the 23 crewmen were kept confined last two days.
The pirates have agreed to allow the crewmen to stay in their cabins till this night and then they would be confined in the bridge again, she said.
Her son informed her that pirates allowed them to cook on their own.
Pirates have yet to say anything about ransom, said the mother quoting her son.
She said that her son told her not to worry and asked her to keep regular contact with the ship's owning firm.
The mother said the officials of the ship's owner firm SR Shipping are keeping contact with her regularly.
According to her mother, the crew member joined as a mariner in 2017 few days after his father died.
He got on board this ship in November last year.