A foreign ship and its crew, held for six months by Somali militiamen, escaped on Saturday from the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, a local journalist in Bosaso told IRIN on Monday. The North Korean-registered, Greek-owned cargo ship was originally seized by over a dozen gunmen in speedboats last August off the coast of Puntland. The ship and its crew, initially held at the coastal village of Bareda, 150 km east of Bosaso, had been moved to the coast near Bosaso a month ago, said the journalist. Most of the militia left the ship after its owners refused to pay the initial ransom demand of US $1 million. Only four militia were left and “two of those decided to go to Bosaso to buy qat [narcotic leaf] on Saturday”, he said. “The six crew members somehow managed to disarm the remaining two, and took off with the ship,” the journalist told IRIN. Full Story
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