‘All sailors are in good health, efforts underway to rescue them’

All 23 sailors of hijacked Bangladeshi-flagged cargo ship MV Abdullah are in good health. Now the government’s main aim is to rescue the sailors.

Foreign Ministry’s Maritime Affairs Unit secretary Rear Admiral (Retd) Khurshed Alam said this at a press briefing after attending an inter-ministerial meeting regarding the hijack at the foreign ministry on Thursday.

Discussions with various third-party groups are ongoing in a bid to rescue the hijacked ship, he added.

However, he said, the pirates who hijacked the Bangladeshi-flagged vessel in the Indian Ocean on Tuesday are yet to make any contact with the government.

“The pirates have not yet made any ransom demands or established contact," Khurshed said.

Referring the past experience, he hoped that they would be able to release the ship along with the crew safely, without any casualties or damage.

“But, we can't give any specific timeline to this effect," he added.

On previous incident in 2010, a Bangladesh-flagged vessel, MV Jahan Moni was hijacked by pirates in the Arabian sea off the coast of India.    

The hostage twenty-five crew members and the wife of chief officer were rescued with the ship after nearly 100 days.