Families of Ghanaian hostage appeals to Prez

The family of a Ghanaian who is being held hostage together with others by Somalian pirates is appealing to President Mills to urgently intervene and secure their release.

Mr Francis Koomson, 58, and his compatriots Jewel Ahiable, Prince John Agbo and Edward Kofi Asare, together with 18 other people of Indian, Pakistani and Yemen nationalities who were captured on March 29, 2010, feared they could be executed any moment if the government failed to negotiate with the group on the $1 million demand being made for their release.

A desperate Koomson, who is being used as a spokesperson for the four Ghanaians, told the Daily Graphic in a telephone interview that “hope is running out for us”. He said as the vessel was also taking in water and their captors were threatening to execute them and abandon the vessel whose owner had declined to pay $8 million being demanded by the pirates for its release.

In a frail voice, he told the Daily Graphic that the conditions under which they were being held kept deteriorating.

“I can’t walk or move around since my legs are swollen. Besides, the cabin in which we are being kept is an unventilated one, thus compounding our woes,” he said sobbing.

Mr Koomson said their captors needed the assurance from the government that it would negotiate for their release, saying, “if only we can get a government official to speak to these people, 1 am sure our lives would be spared”.

The 24 crew members on board the RORO vessel, MV Iceberg, were captured within the Somali waters while travelling to Dubai from Oman in the Middle East where they had gone to deliver goods in March, 2010.

An Indian national who could not stand the ordeal was reported' to have committed suicide, while a Pakistani was killed by the pirates to send home their message to the crew.

A 28-year-old son of Mr Koomson, Francis Koomson Junior, who accompanied family members to the offices Of the Daily Graphic, said that although the Foreign Minister, Mr Mohammed Mumuni and the National Security Co-ordinator, Mr Larry Gbevlo Lartey, held a meeting with the family and officials of the Immigration Service and the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) sometime in 2010, when the incident first occurred, nothing had been heard from them.

“Several attempts to subsequently meet the minister and Mr Lartey have been unsuccessful,” he said.

A visibly worried Koomson Junior said he feared the fate of his father hung in the balance since the family had no idea as to how to raise the $l million being demanded by the group, of captors and appealed to public-spirited Ghanaians to join in their plea for the President's intervention.