A British couple kidnapped from their yacht by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean over a year ago has been released.
A ransom of around $1m was reportedly paid to free Paul and Rachel Chandler who are en route to Kenya’s capital Nairobi.
Reporting on the couple's plight has been blocked for the past few months by an injunction secured by their family in London's High Court.
A statement issued on Sunday on behalf of the couple's family read: "Throughout the protracted discussions with the pirates it has been a difficult task for the family to get across the message that these were two retired people on a sailing trip on a small private yacht and not part of a major commercial enterprise involving tens of millions of pounds of assets.
"Thankfully, common sense finally prevailed and a solution was obtained for their release in the last few days."
The retired couple was snatched from their yacht Lynn Rival a short distance from the Seychelles on 23 October last year. They had just left the Seychelles and were en route to Tanzania on the next leg of a round-the-world trip.
Armed pirates boarded the boat whilst the two were asleep and swiftly set sail for the Somali coast. Although they were tracked by the Royal Navy, they were then shifted from the yacht to the 1,550-teu hijacked boxship Kota Wajar (built 1997). The Pacific International Lines vessel was itself taken on 15 October in the same region.
They were then moved ashore where, over the past year, they were shifted around desolate regions in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland from where virtually all Somali piracy originates. At some stages there were split up but are believed to have spent much of the past year together.
The Chandlers were driven overnight to the Somali town of Adado near the Ethiopian border where a UK security guard was recently kidnapped but swiftly released. They were then flown to Mogadishu where they were paraded in front of the media by the prime minister of Somalia’s weak, UN-based government, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.
They were then flown on to Nairobi where they were due to land on Sunday afternoon. They will then be given medical check-ups before being flown back to the UK.
There are reports that family members, friends and Somali sources scraped together a ransom of $1m. Although a ransom payment was almost certainly made, its true source or sources is likely to remain a mystery.
The family statement continued: "There will be the inevitable questions of how their release was achieved. The family believes it would be irresponsible to discuss any aspect of the release process as this could encourage others to capture private individuals and demand large ransom payments, something that we are sure none of us wants."
Pirates had originally demanded $4.2m for the couple’s release. A sum of over $440,000 was said to have been paid over by their family earlier this year but the release never materialised as their captors reportedly waited on a further payment of around the same amount which they believed was coming to them. If this second payment was made it would push the ransom up towards $900,000.
