| July 2009 Piracy outside Somalia has more than quadrupled in the past few months. Better trained and funded, the pirates now succeed in every 3rd attempt on commercial vessels. We hear from the captives of the Faina. Last September the Ukrainian freighter M/V Faina was captured by Somali pirates. The Faina was loaded with 10000 tons of military ammunitions, tanks and weapons. Since we had military cargo, we hoped the ransom would be paid quickly, we were wrong. For more than 4 months the crew were held hostage. It was a war of nerves at the end. Who would give in first: The crew or the pirates. Artyom recalls the pirates plans; They even wanted to run the ship ashore, with more than 7000 tons of high explosives on board, we managed to explain that the explosion could have taken out a chunk of the African continent. For the first time, the Faina crew tell their story and show us hidden footage of life in captivity. |
