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Authors: Nuruddin Farah
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executing his travels. Not so anymore, or not this time. Until his arrival in Djibouti, there has been hardly any joy in making the trip.
So far, everything has gone without a hitch. In Paris, he picked up his visa from the Djibouti consulate in time for his departure out of Orly. They hardly bothered to scrutinize his form once he started speaking in Somali, if hesitantly at first. Ahl put “tourism” where the form asked the purpose of his travel, well aware that many people do not think of Djibouti as a tourist destination. Of course, he was tempted to tell the truth: that he was on his way to the Horn of Africain search of his missing son—there is no equivalent, in Somali, for
stepson
. Anyhow, from what he has read, Djibouti is worth a visit. Nature lovers especially are bound to admire the lunar look of the landscape, which boasts of geological wonders on a par with the best anywhere.
French was the operating language in the aircraft. In addition to a two-day-old
Le Monde
, Ahl found a copy of a day-old
Le Canard Enchaîné
, the French satirical paper, in his seat. He read the two papers, now one and now the other, since both had front-page pieces about a Panamanian-flagged, Norwegian-owned chemical tanker seized by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, with the
Canard
providing more sensational copy about the seizure of the vessel and giving more inside information about the hostages’ communication with their families. The 50,000-ton bulk shipper had a crew of sixty, many of them—almost two-thirds—from Korea, and the captain was Norwegian.
On a
Canard
inside page, the article claimed that the hijackers were treating the hostages well, allowing them to speak to their families once a week. From the conversation between the seamen and their families, it became clear how the pirates had captured the boat. They arrived in twelve-foot fiberglass speedboats with inboard motors, escorted by two smaller skiffs with outboard motors; a mother ship waited close by. The ship, weighed down with heavy cargo, moved slower than the small boats. The second mate had alerted the captain to the presence of the boats. But before the captain was able to organize a way of repelling the attack, a dozen armed men had gained access to the tanker before the seamen had a chance to lock themselves in. The leader of the pirates found his way to the captain’s cabin, put a machine gun to the captain’s forehead, and vowed to kill him unless he instructed his men to go where they were told to go and do what they were told to do. The ship was directed toward Garcad, which came within view the following day. There, the captain was allowed tomake a call to the shipowners to inform them of their new situation. According to him, they wouldn’t release the ship unless they were given $25 million.
Too tired to read any more, Ahl puts the newspaper away. But as he tries to sleep, he keeps thinking about the details of several other attacks—on luxury yachts, on an Israeli boat carrying chemical waste, on a huge Korean-owned tanker loaded with almost sixty tanks and other heavy weapons, destination unclear. Certainly the pirates received intelligence from an unnamed informant, who suggested that the buccaneers approach with only two skiffs and attack from the port side. No doubt the pirates would not know that the seamen keeping watch were likely to focus on the starboard side. One of the pirates would claim later that they knew the nature of the cargo as well, having received intelligence about it. He went on to say that they knew, too, that the cargo would in itself interest the world media, a shipment of weapons intended for Sudan, where it would fuel the civil war to flare between north and south.
Ahl is aware of another more recent hijacking. The Saudi-owned supertanker
Sirius Star
had been taken by a hardened lot of pirates armed with shoulder-launched antitank weapons, rocket-propelled grenades, Kalashnikovs, and other small arms. The
So far, everything has gone without a hitch. In Paris, he picked up his visa from the Djibouti consulate in time for his departure out of Orly. They hardly bothered to scrutinize his form once he started speaking in Somali, if hesitantly at first. Ahl put “tourism” where the form asked the purpose of his travel, well aware that many people do not think of Djibouti as a tourist destination. Of course, he was tempted to tell the truth: that he was on his way to the Horn of Africain search of his missing son—there is no equivalent, in Somali, for
stepson
. Anyhow, from what he has read, Djibouti is worth a visit. Nature lovers especially are bound to admire the lunar look of the landscape, which boasts of geological wonders on a par with the best anywhere.
French was the operating language in the aircraft. In addition to a two-day-old
Le Monde
, Ahl found a copy of a day-old
Le Canard Enchaîné
, the French satirical paper, in his seat. He read the two papers, now one and now the other, since both had front-page pieces about a Panamanian-flagged, Norwegian-owned chemical tanker seized by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, with the
Canard
providing more sensational copy about the seizure of the vessel and giving more inside information about the hostages’ communication with their families. The 50,000-ton bulk shipper had a crew of sixty, many of them—almost two-thirds—from Korea, and the captain was Norwegian.
On a
Canard
inside page, the article claimed that the hijackers were treating the hostages well, allowing them to speak to their families once a week. From the conversation between the seamen and their families, it became clear how the pirates had captured the boat. They arrived in twelve-foot fiberglass speedboats with inboard motors, escorted by two smaller skiffs with outboard motors; a mother ship waited close by. The ship, weighed down with heavy cargo, moved slower than the small boats. The second mate had alerted the captain to the presence of the boats. But before the captain was able to organize a way of repelling the attack, a dozen armed men had gained access to the tanker before the seamen had a chance to lock themselves in. The leader of the pirates found his way to the captain’s cabin, put a machine gun to the captain’s forehead, and vowed to kill him unless he instructed his men to go where they were told to go and do what they were told to do. The ship was directed toward Garcad, which came within view the following day. There, the captain was allowed tomake a call to the shipowners to inform them of their new situation. According to him, they wouldn’t release the ship unless they were given $25 million.
Too tired to read any more, Ahl puts the newspaper away. But as he tries to sleep, he keeps thinking about the details of several other attacks—on luxury yachts, on an Israeli boat carrying chemical waste, on a huge Korean-owned tanker loaded with almost sixty tanks and other heavy weapons, destination unclear. Certainly the pirates received intelligence from an unnamed informant, who suggested that the buccaneers approach with only two skiffs and attack from the port side. No doubt the pirates would not know that the seamen keeping watch were likely to focus on the starboard side. One of the pirates would claim later that they knew the nature of the cargo as well, having received intelligence about it. He went on to say that they knew, too, that the cargo would in itself interest the world media, a shipment of weapons intended for Sudan, where it would fuel the civil war to flare between north and south.
Ahl is aware of another more recent hijacking. The Saudi-owned supertanker
Sirius Star
had been taken by a hardened lot of pirates armed with shoulder-launched antitank weapons, rocket-propelled grenades, Kalashnikovs, and other small arms. The
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