Home at Last

Russian sailors kidnapped by Nigerian pirates from the ship BBC Caribbean, IMO 9378242, were released from the captivity. As was reported by the Sevastopol human rights commissioner Pavel Butsai, the sailors have already returned home.

Eight sailors, including seven Russian and one Ukrainian citizens, have been held captive by pirates in Nigeria since the beginning of February. As was reported by TASS, the owner, Briese Schiffahrts, along with the Russian diplomats were engaged in tough negotiations. As a result they managed to liberate the sailors. Not a single detail was disclosed of the sailors’ release. According to the Sevastopol human rights commissioner Pavel Butsai, the sailors set off home in a satisfactory condition. Their relatives were surely informed about this happy event. The Russian embassy to Nigeria confirmed on 5 March that all Russian sailors kidnapped by Nigerian pirates from BBC Caribbean had been released and left Nigeria.

Among those released three member sailors of the Seafarers’ Union of Russia’s Sevastopol branch. According to Pavel Butsai, they arrived in Crimea on Monday. Briese Shipping crewing company’s office in St. Petersburg confirmed that the sailors must have flown home. According to the crewing company, in addition to Crimeans, there were sailors from Murmansk, Kaliningrad, and Novgorod on board the vessel.

The ship BBC Caribbean, which belongs to German Briese Schiffahrts cargo company, was attacked on February 5, in the area of the Niger Delta, 45 nautical miles off the Nigerian state of Bayelsa, en route from the city of Douala in Cameroon to Tema, Ghana. At the time of the attack the crew consisted of eleven sailors, ten of them being Russians. All of them had been employed by the offices of the crewing company Briese Shipping located in St. Petersburg and the Crimea. The part of the crew managed to escape the ship but the rest were captured by the pirates.

Chairman of the SUR Sevastopol Primary Organisation (SUR Sevastopol PPOOM) Artem Boev said that the union would do everything in its power to help the SUR member sailors returned from the captivity.

He continued: “We are surely ready to render all possible assistance to the sailors to enable them to forget the horror of captivity and to resume their normal lives. Now it is important to ensure that the employer fulfills its contractual obligations and fully pays the wages for the time spent in captivity until the return to the place of engagement. A company representative has assured us that the sailors would get all their money in full in the near future. We will closely monitor the effective implementation of this commitment”.