Somali pirates have released the MV Abdullah and 23 crew members that they hijacked yesterday morning after a ransom of 5 million dollars was taken from them, according to two pirates.
“The money was brought to us two nights ago as usual. We checked whether the money was fake or not. Then we divided the money into groups and left, avoiding the government forces,” said Abdirashid Yusuf, one of the pirates, to the Reuters news agency.
He added that the ship was released with all its crew members.
Somali government officials have not yet issued any response to the statement made by the Somali pirates.
The MV Abdullah, a Bangladeshi-flagged commercial cargo ship, was hijacked in March en route from Mozambique to the United Arab Emirates.
The kidnapping took place 600 nautical miles east of the capital of Somalia, Mogadishu.
Somali piracy created chaos in the country’s offshore waters between 2008 and 2018. They took a break until late last year when piracy activities started again.
Naval sources say the pirates may be encouraged by the loosening of security or may take advantage of the chaos caused by ship attacks by Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthi group amid ongoing fighting in Gaza. Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas.
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