Djibouti: French luxury sailing ship Le Ponant, whose crew have been freed by pirates, is expected in Djibouti next Tuesday, a spokesman for the owners of the vessel said.

"Le Ponant is expected in Djibouti on Tuesday, with or without the crew. We do not yet have details on the way in which they will be repatriated," said Jean-Louis Gaudaire, a spokesman for CMA-CGM, today.

"It takes several days of sailing from where they are to reach Djibouti and the boat goes a lot slower than the navy. It is possible the skipper will stay on board with navy crew to bring the boat back under escort," he said.

The French presidency announced earlier today that the pirates had released the 30 crew, including 22 French nationals, who had been held for a week. Among the crew were also at least six Filipinos and one Ukrainian.

The three-master was seized by pirates April 4 in Gulf of Aden waters and anchored off the village of Garaad in Puntland, a self-proclaimed autonomous northern region of Somalia.

Since then, it had been under the watch of a French naval coastal patrol boat, Commandant Bouan. France's largest military base abroad is in Djibouti, a tiny former colony on Somalia's northern border.

Djibouti is strategically vital in the Horn of Africa region because it lies at the junction of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and thus on a key shipping lane via the Suez Canal further north to the Indian Ocean.

Piracy for ransoms is rampant off Somalia, a nation where rival warlords and more recently, an Islamist movement, have been fighting. The country has lacked an effective central government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Source : PTI