Three more Taiwanese fishing boats hijacked off Somalia last year were released, along with their 62 crewmembers, at the weekend, the foreign ministry spokesman said Monday.
The vessels -- the Cheng Ching Feng, Hsin Lien Feng 36 and Feng Rong 16 -- were among four ships seized by Somali pirates. The Chung Yi 218 and its crew were released last Thursday.
"The three ships have set sail from Somalia, and the crew are all safe," Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Michel Lu (
The four vessels carried a total of 62 crewmembers from Taiwan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam. The Feng Rong 16 was hijacked last November, while the other three were seized last August.
Somali pirates reportedly had threatened to kill dozens of the crewmembers unless the ships' owners paid ransoms amounting to US$500,000 per boat.
Lu declined to say whether the owners had paid ransoms.
Somalia was plunged into anarchy after strongman Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991, and the country disintegrated into a patchwork of fiefdoms run by warlords and clan militia chiefs.
On Jan. 22, pirates hijacked another merchant ship, believed to be registered in the United Arab Emirates.
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