Hostage sailors will be rescued from pirates this month: State Minister

State Minister for Shipping Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury has said that it will be possible to rescue the ship 'MV Abdullah' with 23 sailors held hostage by Somali pirates within this month.

He said this while talking to reporters at his office in the Secretariat on Tuesday (April 9).

The state minister said, "Our main responsibility is to bring back the sailors safely to their families. Work is going on for that purpose. This is not a small event; it is a very big event. So, it is not possible to solve it within any fixed time limit. But we can assure that the entire incident is under our control. We hope that we will be able to bring the sailors back to the country safely.”

He said, 'Our aim was to bring them before the holy Eid-ul-Fitr, but unfortunately we failed. But, hopefully, we can bring them back to the country in a few days. We hope a fair solution will be reached within this month.”

Chowdhury said, "We are trying to solve the matter through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But our navy works in international areas, they are also keeping track. Overall, the situation is not out of our control.”

Informing that the sailors of 'MV Abdullah' are being contacted, Chowdhury said, “Our Navy I also making regular contact. The sailors are fine.”

The state minister also said, “We have never faced pirates. So we can't say how the bandits are being negotiated with. They are being contacted through the people who have contacts with the pirates.”

Mentionable, the Bangladeshi-flagged ship MV Abdullah was captured by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean on March 12. Since then, 23 Bangladeshi sailors and crew have been held hostage by the pirates.