A British couple kidnapped by Somali pirates in October said they were not being treated well and needed urgent help, a reporter who met them in captivity said.
“Please help us, these people are not treating us well,” said Rachel Chandler, captured by pirates with her husband Paul as they sailed their yacht, the Lynn Rival, in the Indian Ocean on Oct. 23.
They were brought ashore and have been held in separate locations in central Somalia.
PHOTO: AFP
Rachel Chandler made her plea to a surgeon who was allowed to briefly examine the pair on Thursday, accompanied by an AFP photographer, the first journalist to see the Chandlers since their capture.
The surgeon, Abdi Mohamed Helmi “Hangul,” said Rachel Chandler was in poor mental and physical health.
“She is sick, she is very anxious, she suffers from insomnia,” Hangul said. “But I think she’s mainly mentally unwell, it seems. She’s very confused, she’s always asking about her husband — ‘Where’s my husband, where’s my husband? — and she seems completely disorientated.”
The pair are being held in separate locations in rugged areas between the coastal village of Elhur and the small town of Amara, further inland.
During the visit Chandler looked pale, tired and distraught and pleaded to be reunited with her husband.
“I’m old, I’m 56 and my husband is 60 years old. We need to be together because we have not much time left,” she said.
She spoke to the doctor in the presence of the photographer, from a tent where she is being guarded by pirates armed with assault rifles.
Surrounded by trees, her tiny hideout consists of orange netting, tarpaulin and a few rugs.
For his part, Paul Chandler appeared psychologically more robust than his wife, but said the conditions of their separate detention were difficult.
“Please help us, we have nobody to help us, we have no children ... We have been in captivity for 98 days and we are not in good condition,” he said.
Hangul said Paul Chandler “had a bad cough and seemed to have some fever.”
The surgeon, who had initially traveled to his hometown of Hobyo early last month to start building a hospital there, said it took him three weeks to obtain agreement from the kidnappers to visit the Chandlers.
Hangul, a respected figure in the Somali clan to which the kidnappers also belong, said he was not allowed to bring drugs with him, but left a prescription with the captors.
“I gave them some advice and told them: ‘Your hostages can die, all you want is money so treat them well, let them re-unite,’” the doctor said. “They said that they agreed, but I cannot be sure what they’ve done.”
Neither the Chandlers nor their kidnappers made any reference to a ransom.
“We do not know what is happening right now, we have spoken to people and we are still waiting,” Rachel Chandler said, without elaborating.
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