Injured MT Honour sailors and remains of three crew head home

Four Pakistani sailors injured during the operation to recover the hijacked oil tanker MT Honour 25 off Somalia, along with the remains of three crewmates who were killed, left Addis Ababa on Sunday and are due in Karachi in the evening.

“Pakistan’s ambassadors to Djibouti and Ethiopia saw off the four injured Pakistani crew members of MT Honour 25, Usman Ghani, Aqeel Khan, Ameen bin Shams and Yasir Khan, along with the mortal remains of Rafi Ullah Khan, Syed Kashif Umer and Mahmood Ahmad Ansari,” the Foreign Office said on X. They are travelling on Ethiopian Airlines flight ET 694.

The men who did not survive

The three Pakistanis killed were:

• Kashif Umar, second officer
• Mahmood Ansari, third engineer
• Rafiullah, boiler worker

All the Pakistani crew members who were killed or injured were from different areas of Karachi, The Express Tribune reported. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has announced a relief package of Rs12.5 million for the families of the dead.

Five months as hostages

The tanker was hijacked by Somali pirates on April 21 while sailing from Oman to Somalia. It had 17 crew on board, 10 of them Pakistani, along with seven Indonesians, an Indian and a Sri Lankan, according to the reports.

For around five months there was no progress in negotiations. The pirates first demanded a ransom of $3 million, later cut to $1.9 million and then $1 million. The crew sent emotional video and audio appeals saying they had run out of clean water, food and medicine, and their families staged protests in Karachi and repeatedly approached the authorities.

How they were killed

Somali maritime police recovered the tanker on September 29 and arrested 21 suspected pirates. Officials said the pirates killed five crew members before the operation began: three Pakistanis, an Indian and the chief engineer from Myanmar.

Advocate Quratulain of the Ansar Burney Trust gave a different account. She said the pirates brought the hostages onto the deck when they saw Puntland forces approaching, tied their hands and threatened to kill them, then opened fire as the security forces moved in.

Surviving Pakistani crew members later contacted the Ansar Burney Trust in Karachi using the captain’s phone to describe what had happened, The Express Tribune reported.

Three still on board

Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar said on Friday that three other Pakistani crew members, Imran Ali, Yasin Muhammad and Syed Yousuf Hussain, remain aboard the vessel with its captain. Pakistan is coordinating with friendly countries to bring them home safely.

Piracy is back

Piracy has returned to the Gulf of Aden and the Somali coast since April, with at least 15 attacks recorded this year, the highest since 2013, according to the International Maritime Organisation. Puntland police rescued another tanker, Sibu 1, on Friday, but 28 of the 41 pirates arrested in that operation later escaped while being moved to jail.

Why it matters

For five months, the families of these sailors begged for help. Three men are coming home in coffins, and four are coming home wounded. Their ordeal is a reminder of the risks Pakistani seafarers face, and of the need for faster action to protect them. Read our earlier report on the recovery of the tanker.

This article draws on reporting by Dawn, The Express Tribune and the Foreign Office.