08 February,2011 06:20 AM IST | | J Dey
Thai fisherman aboard captive fishing vessel hijacked by Somalian pirates relives the days of horror in captivity; vessel was set free by the Indian Navy last Saturday
In the 10 months that Sirapob Wanon spent in the dank, dingy and lightless engine room of Prantalay 14, held captive by Somalian pirates, his family passed each day not knowing if he was alive.
The uncertainty proved to be both solace and scourge. When last Saturday, they learnt that he was alive, and was in Mumbai, their joy knew no bounds.
The Thai seafarers joy knew no bounds when they were rescued by the Indian Navy. The Somalian pirates kept them hostage for 10 months and were fed once a day
The 28-year-old Thai national was aboard one of the three fishing trawlers hijacked by pirates on April 18 last year, when they had set sail to catch the much-sought tuna fish. Prantalay 11, 12 and 14 had disembarked from Jibouti port.
About 1,200 nautical miles into the deep, a band of 25 pirates stormed the vessels and took some 77 sailors hostage.
Aboard Prantalay 14, there were 26.
"It was the last we saw sunlight," recalled Wanon, "The pirates forced us into the dark, slippery engine room where we spent the next 10 months. We were cut off from the rest of the world," he said in broken English.
Devil and deep sea
His family, back in Thailand, had no clue about his whereabouts. Wanon didn't either. Locked up below a hatch, all the hostages could see was the walls closing in on them.
One of the Thai sailors said they realised it was monsoon when the vessel started tossing and pitching viciously, bobbing and threatening to capsize amid the indifferent sea storms.
They could hear huge waves lashing against the hull of the ship, sparing it every time the hostages thought it would break into pieces.
Dingy conditions
When the seas calmed, the seafarers, in the dark hold of the engine room, guessed that it was somewhere close to October or November.
They found the calmer seas relatively easy to negotiate across the slithery floor to go to the dingy toilet. A bath was a luxury.
They were fed once a day, if that. There wasn't enough food and water on the boat for regular meals. Wanon's colleague and countryman Jumras Latbarsri said they could barely remember when food was provided.
As the already limited supply started declining, the pirates fed them with raw fish and uncooked rice. They ate it. Other than avoiding starving to death, they had another reason to.
Eat or get shot
"Those who objected were shot at," Wanon said. "At least two seafarers were shot dead. Their bodies were thrown overboard.
Nobody was sure what would happen next. The pirates looked furious and we didn't even know their language."
The pirates visited the isolated chamber for an occasional head count, to see who had given up the ghost.
They would threaten to open fire with their Kalashnikovs they carried at little or no provocation.
Another captive, Jamnong Namsang, said they didn't think they would ever be rescued. It was hoping against hope that the government would agree to pay a huge ransom to bring them home, a hostage said.
The bowels of the ship do not make for a very advantageous position to know where one is headed in the all-encompassing blue.
But the hostages had a sketchy idea from their cloistered chamber that they were being taken around the Indian Ocean, perhaps to gain time. Indeed, the Somalian pirates had been using middlemen based in Dubai to broker a huge deal.
When on January 28 andu00a0 by this time the captives had almost given up keeping track of the time of the day or year, or their geographical coordinates the Indian Navy and Coast Guard lay siege to the ship and captured the 25 pirates, the hostages could scarcely believe their luck. Most had resigned to an obscure death.
"We heaved a sigh of relief when we saw some Indian commandos enter the engine room.
It did not take time for us to realise that the Somalian militia had been overpowered. It was reassuring to breathe fresh sea air on the deck," said Wanon.
