Word: somali
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...board, they passed the time cleaning their weapons, marching in haphazard formation on the deck, and chewing miraa, a mildly narcotic leaf popular in Somalia. They shot at any boats that came too close. One day an associate came from the mainland with a note that said, "the Somali Navy has captured your vessel...
...fusion of northern technique and southern hardware seems to be paying dividends. Somali pirates now demand, and often receive, hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom, according to the Piracy Reporting Center's Choong. With that sort of money the pirates "can afford to buy themselves some pretty nice boats," says Choong, and hence extend the range of their seizures...
...That's what happened with the Semlow. After taking control of the ship, the pirates stole $8,500 from Mahalingam's safe and ransacked the crew's cabins. Then they forced the crew to set a course towards the central Somali town of Ceel Huur, where the Semlow dropped anchor within sight of land. "I told the pirates that we were carrying cargo that belonged to all Somalians," says Mahalingam. "I said, 'This is for your own people. Why are you doing this...
...told Mahalingam to radio the Semlow's owners in Mombasa, Kenya, and give them two telephone numbers: one for a mobile phone, the other for a Thuraya satellite phone. Inayet Kudrati, 54, director of the Motaku Shipping Agency, which has had three of its four boats hijacked by Somali pirates since June, received the call and was eventually told he should pay $500,000 if he wanted the ship and crew back. "I told them I didn't have that kind of money," says Kudrati...
...September, negotiations to obtain the crew's release had foundered. The hijackers had increased their ransom demand and reneged on an agreement to allow the rice to be handed over to the Somali government. When the Semlow's generator ran out of oil, the pirates accused the crew of hoarding it. One Somali fired a shot through the window on the bridge. "We thought this trip was the end of our lives," remembered able seaman Rashid Juma Mwatuga, 42. In late September the Ibn Batuta, an Egyptian ship carrying cement, appeared on the horizon. "The pirates told me they were...