French army frees hostages in Somalia
16/9/2008 18:18
A regional maritime official confirmed today that French nationals who
have been held hostage by Somali pirates for two weeks have been freed by the
French army in an operation in which one pirate was killed.
Andrew Mwangura,
the East Africa Coordinator of Seafarers Assistance Program (SAP) said the
French military commandos carried out the operation yesterday where they
overpowered the Somali pirates, leading to the death of one pirate.
"One
pirate was killed and six others were captured during the operation carried out
yesterday by the French military commandos," Mwangura told Xinhua by
telephone.
Hijackers captured the Venezuelan-registered French sailing boat
Carre d'as in the Gulf of Aden on September 2 and took it to Bargal village, a
pirate den in Somalia's northern semi-autonomous Puntland region.
Somalia is
at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden, which leads to the Red Sea and the 166-km
Suez Canal, one of the world's most important shipping channels.
The country
has been plagued by factional fighting between warlords and hasn't had a
functioning central administration since the 1991 ouster of former dictator
Mohammed Siad Barre.
Many attacks take place along Somalia's 3,700 km of
largely unpatrolled coast infested by pirates, who operate high-powered
speedboats and carry heavy machine guns and rocket launchers.
In June, the UN
Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution authorizing foreign warships
to enter Somalia's territorial waters with the government's consent to combat
pirates and armed robbery at sea, but it is yet to be implemented.
In recent
months, a multinational taskforce based in Djibouti has been patrolling parts of
the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, where a pirate mothership is believed to be
operating.
French commandos carried out an operation in April and captured
six pirates after Somali pirates seized a French luxury sailing ship, Le Ponant,
with its 30 crew, including 22 French nationals, and held them for a
week.
Xinhua
|
