Politicians silent, relatives extra tense amid conflicting reports about the fate of 24 Ukrainian crew members on board a cargo ship hijacked by pirates on May 2
The distress signal coming from the Ariana ship off the Somalian coast is loud, piercing and frightening – to those who want to hear it.
Armed pirates have been holding 24 Ukrainian crew members hostage since May 2. After nearly seven months on board, conflicting reports have surfaced about their fate.
A Reuters news service report on Nov. 26 said that the crew had been set free. But the Greek ship’s owner, Spyros Minas, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, relatives of the crew and others told the Kyiv Post that they could not confirm the release or they dismissed the Reuters report as inaccurate.
Other conflicting reports exist. Relatives in the crew’s home city of Odesa say the hostages are in poor health. However, Minas told the Kyiv Post: “As far as I know, everybody is healthy and alive and medicines have been delivered on board.”
Crew member Larysa Salynska, the ship’s cook, is in critical condition, her relatives said. “I’m bleeding, oozing puss and have a fever,” Salynska told her mother-in-law, Lyudmyla Krupska, in a telephone conversation on Nov. 12.
Last summer, Salynska – speaking by telephone on Aug. 30 to the Kyiv Post – said: “I have a feeling that no one needs us, like we are waste material which they can step over as they do their business.” At the time, the ship, which had been hauling a load of soya beans to the Middle East from Brazil, was believed to be 100 kilometers off the Somalian shore on the Indian Ocean.
Salynska had suffered a miscarriage early in captivity. Relatives, who have had sporadic telephone conversations with the hostages arranged by intermediaries, say the others are malnourished and losing hope. One crew member suffered a mental breakdown, they said. “I don’t believe I will ever come back,” Ariana’s boatsman, Serhiy Gerashchenko, said in a recent telephone conversation with his wife, Nadezhda.
If the hefty but undisclosed ransom demand is not met by December, the pirates have threatened to blow up the ship. Ukraine’s government has, like many governments, agreed not to pay ransom. But — even before the Reuters reported the crew’s release on Nov. 26 — the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported progress in negotiations to release the hostages. A spokesman said the government has detected a willingness among the captors to end the standoff.
Moreover, the Spanish government announced it would attempt to secure the release of at least the two women on board. Meanwhile, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi offered to help negotiate the release of the hostages.
The nation’s 18 presidential candidates, usually eager to preen publicly, don’t have a lot of say about the Ariana.
And what about sending the Ukrainian navy to the rescue? There is nothing to send – or practically nothing, only three ships. “What kind of nation has only three warships in the navy it can send abroad?” Nadezhda Gerashchenko asked scornfully. However, Ukraine is considering sending a State Security Service elite unit to join the Atalanta anti-piracy international force which gives military escort to cargo ships.
But the worst may lie ahead, for both the crew of the Ariana and other Ukrainians at sea.
Ukraine is estimated to have more than 70,000 men and women at sea at any given time, almost all working on commercial boats that fly under the flags of other nations. That’s potentially more than 70,000 Ukrainians who could be taken hostage or killed. On Nov 24, a Ukrainian sailor was shot to death in a pirate attack on a German oil tanker off the coast of Benin.
Internationally, nations have been unable to stop a spate of well-organized ship hijackings in the Gulf of Aden off the eastern African coast. Last year alone, pirates earned some $150 million in ransom payments from dozens of hijackings. Commercial losses are estimated at up to $16 billion annually. The most dangerous waters are off the coast of Somalia, which has a barely functioning government.
Ukraine, by contrast, seems especially helpless to protect its citizens abroad, especially those on ships flying under the flags of other nations.
“Ukraine, wake up! The world is wiping feet at you,” said Nadezhda Geraschenko. “Not a single U.S. vessel was held hostage for seven months with Americans dying on board. Pirates know there is nothing to fear from Ukraine. Ukrainian leaders cover each other with dirt, we laugh at them and the world laughs with us!”
At least one presidential candidate, Sergiy Tigipko, said that Ukraine’s government should put more pressure on the ship’s owner or find a way to secretly get the ransom paid.
“Why do we spend money on navy maintenance, if our ships are not present in the area where Ukrainian sailors are taken hostages?” Tigipko asked. “The ship owner can bargain with pirates endlessly. Ukraine has to put pressure on him, and if the ship owner does not pay — to [find a way to] pay the ransom for sailors, but without the public knowing it.”
The crew complained of poor food and unsanitary water in interviews with the Kyiv Post last summer. Relatives say conditions on the cramped ship haven’t improved since then.
The health of Salynska, the ship’s cook who suffered a miscarriage, and one of two women aboard, is a great source of worry. Her husband, Konstantyn Krupsky, is also a crew member and watches her suffer.
This couple hoped to save some money and finish building a family house upon return. “Two kids are waiting for them at home. They were supposed to return on May 20,” said Krupska, Salynska’s mother-in-law.
Nadezhda Gerashchenko has hidden the truth of her husband’s captivity from his ailing 72-year-old mother. She said the health of the couple’s 12-year-old daughter, Alina, has suffered. “She wakes up in the middle of the night and screams on the top of her lungs,” the girl’s mother said. “The stress is enormous.”
Another captive crew member, 26-year-old Yuriy Vasylchenko, was kidnapped on his first time at sea. The university graduate, with a degree in ecology, could not find a job on the land. He shared a one-bedroom apartment with his parents and brother and “always wanted a better life than that,” according to his mother, Zoya Vasychenko. “We are holding our breath,” Vasylchenko said, according to his mother.
Parents say, they “knocked on the door” of every government official for help, including President Victor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. They credit Foreign Minister Petro Poroshenko, presidential candidate Tigipko and the nation’s human rights ombudsman, Nina Karpacheva, responded.
“But none of them is able to bring our kids back home. I don’t have any faith in our government. I call them only to receive new updates on the negotiation process,” said Zoya Vasylchenko.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledges the government’s limitations on getting directly involved in the negotiations, or in paying ransom. To do otherwise, it is believed, would only encourage more kidnappings. “State agencies can only indirectly assist and guide negotiations, provide all necessary technical support,” says Valeriy Dzhigun, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman.
Presidential candidate and former Defense Minister Anatoliy Hrytsenko agreed with the reasoning. “The government should not negotiate, nor pay ransom,” Hrytsenko said. Payments should come from ship owners, intermediaries or insurance companies, he added.
If there is anyone who truly understands what the relatives of the Ariana hostages are going through, it is the relatives – and crew – of the Faina. The ship’s 17 Ukrainians and Russians were held hostage in the Indian Ocean by pirates from Sept. 25, 2008, until their release on Feb. 5. Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk helped pay the ransom that set the Faina crew free.
Before their release, Victor Shapovalov, father of one of the imprisoned crew members, told the Kyiv Post: “Faina is a cold-blooded, slow and incredibly cynical murder of 17 boys who were unlucky enough to be born on the territory, declared as independent Ukraine.”
Shapovalov said he would now describe the Ariana the same way.
His advice to families of the 24 crew members is to speak out and step up their public campaign to win the release of their loved ones. “In one month, we held press conferences, appeared on TV, got connected with the crew and pirates, and on Feb. 13, our kids were home,” Shapovalov added.
Nataliya Bugayova can be reached at [email protected].
