127 Filipinos being held by pirates off Somalia
Agence France-Presse | 11/19/2008 5:31 PM
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A total of 127 Filipino seamen are being held hostage aboard seven vessels hijacked by pirates off the Somalia coast this year, the Department of Foreign Affairs said Wednesday.
The figure includes 19 Filipinos who were among the 25-member crew of the Saudi super-tanker Sirius Star seized by pirates Saturday, department officials said.
Crescente Relacion, the department's executive director for migrant workers, said there was very little the government could do to solve the problem.
She said the government had looked at banning Filipino seamen from working in dangerous waters near Somalia but this was difficult to enforce as the agencies chartering the ships still found this "the most convenient and less expensive route."
"It is hard to monitor them. The seamen only list their point of embarkation," she said.
"The charterer is the one who determines where to send them," Relacion added.
Since the start of the year there have been 17 vessels with 201 Filipino seamen seized by pirates off Somalia but 10 of the vessels and 74 Filipinos have been released, said Relacion.
"The agencies that hired the Filipino seamen negotiate directly with the pirates," said Relacion, adding that the government was not privy to the talks and did not know if any ransom was paid.
Relacion said about a third or 350,000 of the world's merchant seamen come from the Philippines.
The International Maritime Bureau, an international watchdog, said Wednesday that piracy in Somalia was "out of control" and called on the United Nations to step in after the hijacking of the Saudi supertanker.
