We lived like animals
A Korean captain freed from Somalia on Friday has described the horror of his 19 months in captivity.
Park Hyun-yeol said he and his three Korean colleagues lived like animals in cages and did not have access to clean water.
The Glory Ship Management crew were seized on the 30,000-dwt tanker Gemini (built 1986) in April 2011.
The ship and its non-Korean seafarers were released in November last year, but the Korean quartet were retained by the pirates.
Park told the Yonhap news agency: “We drank rain water after filtering out red worms, tadpoles and caterpillars with our undershirts.”
The use of toilets was the only difference between their lives and those of animals, Park said.
The pirates divided the four into two groups and put them under constant watch, and all four lost about 10kg in weight each, he said.
Park added the most difficult moment for him was when pirates made the men telephone their families before firing warning shots and twisting their ears and necks to make them scream so as to scare the families.
“I still get heartbroken to think of how the families felt,” he said.
Following their release, Park and the three others – chief engineer Kim Hyeong-eon, chief mate Lee Geon-il and engineer Lee Sang-hoon – were taken to a South Korean destroyer for a voyage to an unidentified neighbouring nation.
All four are in good health.
The release came after ransom talks between the Singapore-based owner and the Somali gunmen made progress following the pirates’ withdrawal of their demand that five other pirates serving terms in South Korean jail be set free.
Source: SaveOurSeafarers
SaveOurSeafarers is an international, not-for-profit, anti-piracy campaign which was launched in March 2011 by a group of five influential maritime associations.
In the past year, the number of maritime associations, trade unions and P&I insurers supporting the campaign has risen to thirty-three; the largest number of maritime organisations ever to unite behind a single cause.
Piracy imperils seafarer’s lives and wellbeing and costs the industry billions each year. It cannot be allowed to escalate further.
Learn more information at http://www.saveourseafarers.com/
