Farida Farouq, wife of Wael Mohamed Saleh, chief technician on board hijacked Egyptian ship MV Suez, said she had received a phone call from her husband on Wednesday in which he asked for assistance following the refusal of the Red Sea Navigation Company (RSNC)--which owns the ship--to pay the large ransom demanded by Somali pirates. Farouq called on President Hosni Mubarak to intervene on behalf of the 11 kidnapped crew members. In the phone call, Saleh reportedly told his wife, “We will die here and our bodies will probably not be returned to Egypt.” Farouq told Al-Masry Al-Youm that her husband had asked her to contact satellite television network Al-Jazeera to broadcast the crew members' appeal for assistance, “seeing as the company owner and the Egyptian government are unable to intervene on our behalf.” She went on to criticize the owner of RSNC, accusing him of delaying the ransom payment so that he could collect insurance payouts on the ship and its cargo. She accused the company of abandoning the sailors with no consideration of the feelings of their families, who have endured months of psychological stress. “The company owner told us that the matter was now in the hands of the Ministry of Interior, and that the highest authority in Egypt would personally intervene on their behalf following the Eid al-Fitr holiday," Farouq said. "But Eid al-Fitr passed and Eid al-Adha is upon us, and yet no progress has been made." “There are conflicting statements coming from the company owner and the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs," she added. "The company owner told us he had submitted all necessary documents for the sailors' release, but that the ministry had stopped him from paying the ransom. But ministry officials later told me that the man was deceiving us.” Negotiations between RSNC officials and the pirates failed after the latter abruptly raised the ransom request to US$2 million, which the company refused to pay. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
