Thanks to Gary for sending me this. The thing that really got me with this, and with Gary, is that this crew was put in this position of fighting for their lives and having to kill these pirates. We are talking about seaman from all around the world, who are not trained, who are unarmed, and all they wanted to do was work on a boat and feed their families.
It disgusts me that companies continue this practice of sending their folks into harms way, and not providing adequate protections for them. They spend thousands of dollars on safety training for their employees, or on life saving gear like rescue boats or dry suits for cold water. But when it comes to giving their folks the means to protect themselves from piracy attacks, or to contract with a professional security force to protect them, they fall short. And because there is no protections provided, you have crews like this that had to live with such a horrific experience. (surviving captivity, killing pirates, etc.) I guarantee that the shipping company CEO’s would be singing a different tune if they had to go through the same experience as this crew.
Contracting armed security should be required, just like it is required to have safety equipment on these ships. It is the cost of doing business in today’s violent seas and anything less is unacceptable. –Matt
——————————————————————
Crew reclaim ship from Somali pirates
Jun 3, 2010
The crew of a Libyan-owned cargo ship pounced on their sleeping Somali captors, disarmed the pirates and killed five of them, regaining control of their vessel that had been hijacked almost three months earlier, officials said.
A sixth pirate who survived the attack by the MV Rim crew managed to lock himself in a room and call other pirates to say they had been overpowered before the crew took him hostage, said Abdiaziz Aw Yusuf, the Garacad district commissioner. Garacad is the coastal town near which the MV Rim has been anchored.
A crew member was seriously injured during the struggle, the European Union’s anti-piracy naval force said in a statement. The crew had reported to the force that they had retaken control of the ship on Wednesday morning. The EU said it is believed some of the pirates were killed during the incident.