By Mohamed Olad Hassan
Mogadishu - Pirates holding 48 Asian fishermen hostage off Somalia have slashed their ransom demand, a human rights worker said on Tuesday.
The gunmen, who have been holding the fishermen and their vessels near the southern Somali port of Kismayo since August 15, originally demanded $500 000 for each of the three boats and their crews.
They agreed to accept $50 000 during negotiations with the Malaysian agent for the Taiwan trawlers, said Ali Bashi, chairperson of the Fanole Human Rights Centre, a Lower Juba rights group.
The hostages include three Taiwanese captains as well as 45 crew members from Indonesia, China, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Piracy is common along the coast of this chaotic country. Several ships a month are attacked or hijacked, with valuables stolen and crews held for ransom. A ship carrying international food aid has been held by gunmen since late June.
The deal for the Asian fishermen was brokered by officials in Somalia's transitional government, including the Minister for Reconstruction Barre Aadan Shire - whose Juba Valley Alliance controls the region, Bashi said.
Somalia's Foreign Affairs Minister Abdullahi Sheik Ishmail told the local press that the government recognise that paying ransom would damage the country's international image, but officials were compelled to compromise in an effort to ensure the safety of foreign hostages.
Taiwan had asked for international help in contacting the gunmen, and talked to the hostage-takers last week in an effort to negotiate a lower ransom.
Somalia has been without an effective central government since clan-based warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Warlords then turned on each other, plunging the country of seven million into chaos.
A transitional government, formed after lengthy peace talks in Kenya last year, raised some hope, but its members quickly split over where the government should be based and whether it needs peacekeepers from neighbouring countries to help establish order.
The August kidnapping was the first since Taiwanese and other Asian fishermen began catching lobsters, tuna and sharks in Somali waters near Kismayo in 1998 after entering into an agreement with the warlord who then controlled Kismayo to fish there in exchange for an unknown annual fee. - Sapa-AP