Crew members held hostage by Somali pirates for 19 months finally go home

To celebrate his homecoming on Wednesday morning, the family of Zhang Leilei followed Chinese tradition by setting off firecrackers. But the sound only reminded the fisherman of gunshots in the pirates' boat, and made him tremble.

The 30-year-old still suffers from the effects of being held hostage by Somali pirates for 19 months in Africa.

The native of Ruzhou, Central China's Henan province, was among 26 crew members on the trawler, Xu Fu 1, that was released by Somali pirates on July 17. The Taiwan ship employed 13 fishermen from the mainland, one from Taiwan and 12 from Vietnam.

The ship was hijacked by Somali pirates in late December 2010 while fishing off the coast of Madagascar.

Even though he is now at home, Zhang cannot forget the fear from his ordeal.

"For months, 26 men had to share two kilograms of rice a day," Zhang said. "If the pirates were in a good mood, they would give us some vegetables too."

The pirates liked sweet food with almost no salt, but Zhang didn't want to eat sugar since his teeth were decaying.

"I didn't brush my teeth after I was captured by the pirates, and my teeth became worse," he said.

Zhang and his fellow crew members were also forced to work for the pirates, who made their captives dissemble hijacked ships for the parts, which were then sold. If the pirates detected any idleness, Zhang and the other hostages would be beaten with ropes, knives and the butts of machine guns.

Li Guoqi, 22, Zhang's crewmate, said: "The pirates just beat us at will and they would not consider how we felt at all."

Li Guoqi comforts his parents in Pingdingshan, Henan province, on Wednesday. Li and his fellow fishermen were rescued on July 17 after being held hostage by Somali pirates for 19 months. Photo / China News Service

One of the rescued fishermen gets a medical check in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on July 21. Twenty-six crew members were reunited with their families after their long ordeal. Photo / Xinhua

A pirate once slashed Zhang with a knife on his right arm, leaving a 4-cm-long scar.

In the 19 months, Zhang lost 17 kg. He is only 53 kg now.

Some of the hostages were bitten by parasites. Zhang recalls picking out maggotlike parasites off the flesh of several hostages.

Zhang said he usually felt desperate and hopeless - he once wrote a will, and he prepared himself to be killed. But he could not stop thinking of his 6-year-old daughter.

"I could not help crying whenever I saw her photo while I was held in Somalia," Zhang said. "She has changed so much that I didn't recognize her when I came home."

Impossible to escape

Zhang said he never expected danger when he saw the 100,000-ton oil tanker. After the tanker stopped about 10 nautical miles (18.52 km) from the trawler, 20 armed pirates were dropped on a skiff, which then headed at full speed toward Zhang's trawler.

"The skiff reached a speed of nearly 60 knots, but our trawler could do at most 8 knots," Zhang said. "So it was impossible to escape."

As the skiff got closer, Zhang's captain made an emergency call to the trawler's owner for help. The owner said he would seek help from the local government, but the pirates managed to board the trawler before the crew could do anything, Zhang said.

He said it was impossible for them to resist since they had no weapons and they knew nothing about Chinese escort warships.

"Compared with large merchant ships, the trawler Xu Fu 1 is very small in terms of tonnage and cannot accelerate to full speed in a short time," said Zhang Denghui, an assistant to the president of China Shipping (Group) Co in Shanghai.

"Besides, fishing boats have to stop on one spot waiting for the harvest and cannot escape when encountering pirates on the sea and become more vulnerable to hijacks."

Merchant ships are much safer because of their size and speed. Sailors can find shelter in a "safety cabin" that is equipped with facilities to call for help from the escort navy on nearby waters, or from the China Maritime Search and Rescue Center. Pirates cannot break into the cabin before nearby frigates come to the ship's aid. Unfortunately, Xu Fu 1 did not have such a cabin.

"I had a machine gun pointed to my forehead by a middle-aged pirate," he recalled. "The only word he shouted to me was 'stop'."

To frighten the sailors, a pirate fired in the direction of the captain.

The pirates imprisoned the fishermen in a cabin afterward, and the captain was told that they would release the crew after they hijacked other ships. But the pirates did not keep their promise.

"Once I told my captain that if the pirates decided to kill some of us, please let me and other older people die first. The unmarried men should survive to enjoy life," he said.

The hostages used to think of escape after they were taken to Somalia and imprisoned in October. But 80 pirates blocked the only path out.