“Its my rebirth,” said Hari C Nair who is yet to come into terms with the reality to the media persons who met him on his return from the more than 11 month ordeal at the hands of Somalian pirates.
He had arrived in Kochi early Tuesday morning and by 6:30 am, was back home.
He still remembers the events on the fateful sunny morning of February 8 when they were almost six days into their journey from Sudan to Malaysia on the Italian flagged oil tanker Savina Caylyn. They were near Sakkotra island nearly 500 miles off Lakshadweep “They came is skiffs, fully armed, brandishing brand new AK 47 rifles and pistols, carrying plenty of ammunition and attacked the ship with rocket launched grenades”, Mr Hari said.
We tried to evade them by taking the ship in a zigzag movement, but nearly thirty of them came overboard with the help of the aluminium ladders and shooting indiscriminately. They called the captain in, and pointed the AK 47 on his head. The operation was over.” he remembered. The tanker was escorted first to the mother-ship of the pirates and from there sailed for three days to the Somalian coast, where they remained anchored , along with nine other ships, for the past eleven months.
The 22 member crew was herded into the corner of the Wheel House with gun trotting pirates keeping vigil over the captives and they remained there for so long. “The first three months were okay, since we had our on supplies to feed on. However, the last five months were the most difficult,” Mr Hari said. “We lived on one and a half liters of water a day,”
How was a day of the captive like? In the morning by 8:30 am, they would have the breakfast: One Bun. At noon they had rice porridge and for ‘dinner’, rice. “Just enough to keep us alive till they freed us,” he said. The nasty and brutish life of the priate showed on them. Most of them had bullet marks and knife scars. Most of the time they would be chewing a kind of leaf to get intoxicated. When they will be comparatively calm. Brawls and shoot outs were common,” Mr Hari said.
Their freedom came on December 21 when the ransom was dropped into the sea after protracted negotiations. It came in two caches. The pirates left the ship and Italian commandos came over board. The commandos from the private agency hired by the shipping company also joined them. The ship after maintenance, sailed to Fujairah, UAE where the crew had to pass through the formalities including medical check up.
And finally he flew back to the cozy refuge back home where his wife, mother and brother were waiting with grateful prayers to the almighty.
