Online Desk:  The MV Abdullah and its crew are set to arrive in Dubai on Apr 19 after their release by Somali pirates. It will take four to five days there for formalities to be completed before the sailors can head back to Bangladesh.

The information was provided at a press conference held in Agrabad by members of SR Shipping, the Kabir Group subsidiary that owns the vessel, on Sunday.

The ship will reach the UAE on Friday, confirmed SR Shipping Deputy Managing Director Shahriar Hassan Rahat, according to bdnews24.com.

“There, once all formalities are complete, the sailors will head back home after four to five days by plane or ship. We have not decided whether they will return by air or sea. The ship will return to Chattogram once the coal is released.”

“The sailors will decide for themselves how they want to return home,” said SR Shipping CEO Mehrul Karim.

At the start of the briefing, DMD Rahat had said, “As it was a sensitive issue, we did not come forward for strategic reasons. We were able to free the ship after 31 days. The new year has come and the sailors have been freed. We are very happy about that.”

“The pirates captured the vessel on Mar 12 and took the sailors hostage. We have been worried about the safety of the sailors since then.”

“From then on, we started working to see how quickly they could be freed. They were eventually freed after 31 days through negotiation. The pirates left the ship early this morning.”

Rahat thanked the prime minister, the government, the foreign minister, and education minister for their cooperation in helping to free the hostages.

Asked whether nearby foreign ships would have attempted the ‘forceful’ takeover of the MV Abdullah after its capture, the DMD added that, “When we informed them that neither we nor the government wanted to go for it, they did not go through with it.”

On Mar 12, Somali pirates seized control of the MV Abdullah and took the 23 sailors on board hostage. The vessel was transporting 55,000 tonnes of coal from Mozambique to the United Arab Emirates at the time. The cargo ship is operated by SR Shipping, a unit of Kabir Group.

After capturing the vessel, the pirates moved it to the Somali coast and regularly changed its position. Nine days after the vessel was hijacked, the pirates contacted the owners through a third party.

They were finally released on Sunday.