20100922
africanews

Four Ghanaians including 20 other nationals being held hostage by Somali Pirates in the Gulf of Aden off the Coast of Somalia since March 2010 could be killed by Wednesday September 22, if their captors are not paid a ransom between one and ten million dollars.

The pirates have threatened to slay half of the 24 hostages in 48 hours. They include six Indians, nine Yemenis, two Pakistanis, two Sudanese and a Philippine in addition to the four Ghanaian.

They were onboard the MV Iceberg 1 when their captors ambushed them on the high seas seven months ago and have been held hostage since then.

Citi News’ Richard Mensah in an interview with one of the Ghanaian captives via a hidden mobile phone smuggled on board by one of them said their life is ticking away by the passage of every second and have appealed to the Government of Ghana to intervene urgently to secure their release.

“After two months of our capture, our provisions got finished and they supplied us with flour, rice and sugar. We are all accommodated in a small cabin and we sleep close to each other, there is a gunman at the window and another at the entrance and before you go out you ask permission at gun point. What we are going through is more than brutality.

“What we receive from them is starvation; in fact the water we drink is very bad. At a point all the water got finished and we had to drink from the drips of the air conditioner. Infact we are going through hell here, what we are going through is more than hell. The pirates say their ransom is ten million dollars but from our point of view even if we give them 400,000 dollars they will take.

“They have given us a 48 hour deadline that if we don’t come up with anything reasonable they will kill some of us and sink the vessel. I am appealing to the Ghanaian authority that they should do something to save our lives because our treatment here is inhuman,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ghana’s Foreign Affairs ministry said it is investigating the issue to see how the government would help in securing the release of the persons on board the vessel.

Somalia coast is notorious for piracy and has been a threat to international shipping since the second phase of the Somali Civil War in the early 21st century.

Since 2005, many international organizations, including the International Maritime Organization and the World Food Programme, have expressed concern over the rise in acts of piracy.