Chirag Bahri says the moment Somali pirates seized the Marida Marguerite on 8 May 2010 ended his planned career path. “But then, piracy,” he said of the attack, which left him and 21 crewmates hostage for seven months and 20 days.
Bahri was 28 when six men attacked the chemical tanker about 120 miles off Oman. The vessel was carrying benzene from Kandla Port in India to Antwerp in Belgium, and the crew of 22 men included 19 Indians, two Bangladeshis and one Ukrainian.
Marida Marguerite in the Gulf of Aden
The pirates fired two rocket-propelled grenades before scaling the razor wire, then told the captain to head for Somalia. The Marida Marguerite reached the coast off Garacad in northern Somalia about two days later, after the pirates took control in the Gulf of Aden.
Bahri said, “I was terrified. I thought, my God, this is the end.” He said, “People were trying to keep their spirits up in the initial days,” and added, “We thought that ours is a good company – they will pay the pirates and we will be out very soon. We were very positive.”
Somalia and ransom talks
The crew stayed on the bridge for 20 days after the ship reached the Somali coast. Engineering crew members worked 12-hour watches in pairs while the hijackers held the ship, and Bahri later said the pirates began ransom talks with a demand of $15m.
He said, “He didn't get any fruitful result. Whenever the company came up with something, he would ask for more. They started off wanting $15m.” The account leaves the outcome of those talks off the page, but it fixes the timeline: seizure on 8 May 2010, a move toward the coast off Garacad in northern Somalia, then months of captivity for the crew.
Malone Lam Pleads Guilty in 245 Million Cryptocurrency RICO Conspiracy and CyberLeek Fuels GTA 6 Leaks Malware Downloads on Piracy Sites are separate developments, but this case shows how piracy on a commercial route could hold a tanker’s crew for months after a single attack.
