Somali pirates free SA couple

REUTERS

FREE: Released South African hostages Bruno Pelizzari and Deborah Calitz celebrate their release in Somalias capital, Mogadishu, yesterday. The couple were kidnapped by Somali pirates 20 months ago aboard a yacht in the Indian Ocean. Picture: REUTERS

Bronwyn Fourie

“Today I am a free man. Yesterday I wasn’t, but today I am,” Bruno Pelizzari said over and over again yesterday after he was reunited with his sister, Vera Hecht, in Mogadishu.

Hecht had flown out to Somalia on Wednesday after a ransom agreement was finally reached with the Somali pirates who had held Pelizzari and his partner Deborah Calitz hostage for almost 20 months. Some of the money for the ransom was raised by Somalis in Cape Town.

Hecht’s daughter Terry said about R1 million had been raised over almost two years and paid to the pirates. But she did not believe this would have been satisfactory to secure their release.

“They had first wanted $10m, and we could only give them about $100 000 so I doubt they would have been happy with that.”

She said she assumed that the rest of the ransom had been paid by the government in Somalia. The couple were taken hostage after the yacht SY Choizil, which they were sailing with skipper Peter Eldridge, was hijacked off the Kenyan coast en route to Richards Bay from Dar es Salaam.

Associated Press reported that they smiled, but appeared exhausted, at a news conference at the presidential palace in Mogadishu yesterday.

“We are very happy to get our freedom again,” Calitz said, speaking haltingly. “We are so happy today to join our families again.”

Her brother Dale van der Merwe, who lives in Pretoria, said he was “elated” when he received the news yesterday morning, and that a “heavy weight” had been lifted.

“I don’t think the reality has actually set in. I have been in tears most of the morning.”

Van der Merwe said the couple’s release would not have been possible without donations from the public, including the local Somali community in South Africa.

Alas Jama, a Cape Town businessman who contributed to the ransom, said: “We are very hurt by what happened to the family. Somalis know the feeling of lawlessness. We met Vera when she came to Cape Town and we handed over the money. The collection of the money was a collective effort by

the Somali community in Cape Town. Students, business people, religious leaders and ordinary citizens contributed over a three-week period.

“We wanted to make a stand that we condemn the action. You hear only bad news about Somalia. We wanted the world to know that not all Somalis are like that. The pirates are ruining our name.”

The South African Department of International Relations and Co-operation expressed its “sincere gratitude” to the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia and the Italian government for their roles in securing the couple’s release.

There was still speculation last night whether the couple had been rescued by the Somali National Army or whether a ransom had been paid. According to the Somalia Report, an online piracy-watch publication, the Somali government stated that the couple was rescued by the Somali National Army. It also quoted Calitz as saying: “We are happy that we have been rescued by the government of Somalia. We owe them our lives.”

However, the families of Pelizzari and Calitz said money had been exchanged for their freedom. Hecht had been instrumental in negotiating with the pirates and had spearheaded the fund-raising drive.

Yesterday afternoon Terry heard her uncle’s voice for the first time since he was released, when her mother phoned her from Mogadishu.

“He just kept saying ‘today I am a free man, yesterday I wasn’t, but today I am’. He sounded dazed.

“Deborah would not have known it but she now has another two grandchildren. She only knew of her first grandchild, but still had to meet him, and Bruno also hasn’t met his grandson.”

Since finding out about two weeks ago that Pelizzari and Calitz could be released, Terry and her mother had put all their efforts into getting a room ready for the couple and going shopping for them.

She said she had not recognised her uncle in new photographs. “He must have been beaten to a pulp. And he has aged.”

Terry said Pelizzari would go to Rome to visit his 81-year-old mother. Hecht is also travelling with them. From Rome they will head home to South Africa and at some point he would fetch his yacht which is in Dar es Salaam.

An official from the Italian government said he could not divulge the details of its role in the release but the government had not not paid any ransom.