Maritime Affairs Minister Junaid Anwar Chaudhry held a telephone call with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Monday regarding the release of Pakistani seamen taken hostage by Somali pirates, a statement by Chaudhry\u2019s ministry said.<\/p>\n
The seamen were taken hostage more than a month ago when armed pirates hijacked the MT Honour 25 off the southeastern coast of Somalia on April 21. There were 11 Pakistanis among the vessel\u2019s crew, who remain in the pirates\u2019 captivity.<\/p>\n
A statement by the Maritime Affairs Ministry said that Chaudhry had called Dar and also contacted Pakistan\u2019s envoy in Somalia on the matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeed to expedite efforts for the fast and safe release of the Pakistani crew was stressed,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n
It quoted Chaudhry as saying that soon after receiving information about the incident in April, efforts for the crew\u2019s release were initiated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe remain in touch with the Pakistan foreign ministry and the Somalian embassy,\u201d he said, adding that the government was making efforts for the safe return of the seamen.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Foreign Office spokesperson Tahir Andrabi had said that Islamabad remained \u201cactively engaged\u201d in efforts to secure the release of the seafarers.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, the situation remains grave,\u201d Andrabi acknowledged when asked about the latest update on the situation during a weekly FO briefing.<\/p>\n
\u201cPakistan remains in contact with the ship owner, who is the principal negotiator with the pirates. These negotiations have been taking place with the knowledge of the Somali government,\u201d the FO spokesperson stated.<\/p>\n
He explained that the \u201cgeographical circumstances, coupled with the fact that the ship is carrying highly explosive cargo, make any law-enforcement operation to secure the release of the captives extremely difficult\u201d, as Pakistan did not want to endanger the safety of the captives.<\/p>\n
The FO urged both the Somali government and the ship owner to ensure that the hostages were provided with food, drinking water, and other necessities.<\/p>\n
Hijackings off Somalia have fuelled concerns about a resurgence of Indian Ocean raids by opportunistic pirates. Pirate attacks off the Somali coast peaked in 2011 \u2014 with gunmen launching attacks as far as 3,655 kilometres from the Somali coast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maritime Affairs Minister Junaid Anwar Chaudhry held a telephone call with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Monday regarding the release of Pakistani seamen taken hostage by Somali pirates, a statement by Chaudhry\u2019s ministry said. The seamen were taken hostage more than a month ago when armed pirates hijacked the MT Honour […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18447,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18448,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18446\/revisions\/18448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}