KENYA: Freed German couple arrives in Nairobi after weeks of captivity in Somalia

Record ID: 361742

  • Title: KENYA: Freed German couple arrives in Nairobi after weeks of captivity in Somalia
  • Date: 10th August 2008
  • Summary: GERMAN AMBASSADOR'S CONVOY CARRYING FREED GERMAN HOSTAGES, DEPARTING
  • Embargoed: 25th August 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Reuters ID: LVAEEJU517HBG2FSIAW6FLRY5PTD
  • Story Text: A German couple that were held hostage in Somalia arrived in Nairobi's Wilson airport on Saturday (August 9) after being freed from pirates.
    They were met at the airport by German ambassador to Kenya Walter Lindner and the Somali ambassador to Kenya Mohamed Ali Noor.
    They had earlier met the president of northern Somalia's breakaway Puntland region who apologised for the nearly two-month-long captivity.
    The pair were hijacked off Yemen in June while sailing to Thailand. The pirates ransacked their yacht and then took them to northern Somalia by speedboat.
    "The couple was held in Puntland for more than six weeks and there was a job done by the German ambassador to Kenya, the president of Puntland and I. We left three days ago and it was only yesterday that we were successful to get them released," said Ali Noor.
    The pair looked ill and dishevelled after they were released by their captors late on Friday (August 8). They repeatedly broke down in tears as they sat alongside Puntland President Adde Muse at a news conference in Bosasso.
    There were reports that they were freed after a ransom was paid to the gang. A man who described himself as an accomplice of the gang of pirates said they were paid $1 million U.S. dollars.
    However the Somali ambassador to Kenya denied ransom claims and said they were released through negotiations alone.
    "These people were released through negotiations with the help of the Puntland authority and the elders, but as far as I know there was no ransom paid," Ali Noor said.
    The two were named by German news magazine Der Spiegel last month as Juergen K. and Sabine M. They told the magazine, which managed to contact them by telephone through an intermediary, that they were beaten and given very little to eat.
    A German foreign ministry spokesman said later on Saturday the two were being cared for in the German embassy in Nairobi.
    Juergen K., who was heavily bearded after the ordeal, was asked to address the press after Muse spoke. But he could not, and the president consoled him as he sobbed.
    The release of the pair followed the freeing on Tuesday (August 5) of two Italian aid workers held hostage in the south since May.
    Piracy has long been rife off the coast of Somalia.
    But it has increased sharply since the start of last year, when the country's weak interim government drove an Islamist movement out of the capital Mogadishu.
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