Romanian Sailors Aboard Pirate-Seized Italian Ship Transferred To Shore

The Buccaneer, with a crew of 16 - ten Italians, five Romanians and one Croatian - was seized by pirates on April 11 in the Gulf of Aden and, apparently, it is currently anchored off the coast of Lasqorey village, 110 kilometers west of Bosasso port, the economic capital of Somali region Puntland.

Ship captain Mario Iarloi said on June 10 that six of the crew members had been transferred to shore. Pasquale Vollaro, the father of one of the Italian sailors, said only the ten Italian sailors are still on board and are being treated very badly by their kidnappers.

"The pirates moved the Romanian sailors to shore and kept on board the ten Italians, whom they treat like animals. My son told me they only get a little rice every day, they have no drinking water and they have to boil the water they get because it is dirty. He’s afraid they will be killed, he is terrorized,” Vollaro said.

Early June, ship captain Mario Iarloi contacted the newsroom of Corriere della Sera and told reporters that the crew has very limited reserves of food, drinkable water and medicine and people are forced to live without air conditioning in temperatures that frequently top 40 degrees Celsius.

"We are exhausted. Please rescue us from this ordeal, or we’ll ask the pirates to kill us," the ship captain said over the phone.

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