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The crew of a vehicle carrier ship hijacked by Yemen's Houthi rebels have been released after 430 days in captivity.
The Houthis said they released the sailors to neighbouring Oman in a statement broadcast by Houthi-owned Al Masirah TV. The Bahamas-flagged Galaxy Leader and its 25 crew, who are Filipino, Romanian, Bulgarian, Mexican and Ukrainian, were seized in the Red Sea in November 2023.
Oman mediated their release and the sultanate's Foreign Ministry confirmed the crew had been transferred to Muscat from Sanaa on Wednesday on an Omani air force plane. “The sultanate of Oman values the co-operation extended by the concerned parties in facilitating and completing this process,” the ministry said in a statement.
Japanese company NYK line operates the Galaxy Leader, but it is owned by Ray Car Carriers, registered in the Isle of Man and affiliated with the Israeli billionaire Abraham Ungar. The National reported in November 2023 that an Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps spy ship may have played a role in the capture of the ship, which had its location transponder turned off.
Since then, the owners of the ship say some of the crew have been in hospital and are eager to leave Yemen. Hopes were raised yesterday when the owners and managers of the ship said in a statement that the “horror story” of their captivity was almost over.
“They were never involved, nor were their countries, yet for more than a year they have had their freedom curtailed. Time to move on,” the statement to Lloyds List read. It came after the Iran-backed group said it would switch to only attacking Israel-linked ships after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza last week.
The ship was towed to Yemen's coastline and became a popular attraction, with civilians touring the boat. The UN special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, said news of the release was “heartwarming”.
“This is a step in the right direction and I urge Ansar Allah [the Houthis] to continue these positive steps on all fronts, including ending all maritime attacks,” he added.
Arsenio Dominguez, secretary general of the International Maritime Organisation, said it was “a moment of profound relief” for the crew, their families and the wider marine community.
“Today’s breakthrough is a testament to the power of collective diplomacy and dialogue, recognising that innocent seafarers must not become collateral victims in wider geopolitical tensions,” he said. “It is also a return to operations in the Red Sea as we have been accustomed to, and the upholding of the freedom of navigation.”
The Houthis have launched more than 100 attacks on ships in the Red Sea since November 2023, in solidarity with Hamas over Israel's war on Gaza. This has had a profound effect on international shipping in the area, forcing companies to reroute to longer and more expensive voyages around southern Africa. Each rerouted journey adds more than 20,300km to the journeys, costing $1 million more in fuel, the US Defence Intelligence Agency estimated.
In April last year, the agency found at least 29 major energy and shipping companies had amended their routes and container shipping through the Red Sea had dropped by 90 per cent. The US and EU have launched their own naval missions in response to the violence, intercepting strikes and escorting ships to secure the area, particularly Bab Al Mandeb, which has become a chokepoint.
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Favourite colour: Brown
Favourite Movie: Resident Evil
Hobbies: Painting, Cooking, Imitating Voices
Favourite food: Pizza
Trivia: Was the voice of three characters in the Emirati animation, Shaabiyat Al Cartoon
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Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.
Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.
Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.
Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.
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Key facilities
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18
This is how many recognised sects Lebanon is home to, along with about four million citizens
450,000
More than this many Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with about 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps
1.5 million
There are just under 1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN, although the government puts the figure upwards of 1.5m
73
The percentage of stateless people in Lebanon, who are not of Palestinian origin, born to a Lebanese mother, according to a 2012-2013 study by human rights organisation Frontiers Ruwad Association
18,000
The number of marriages recorded between Lebanese women and foreigners between the years 1995 and 2008, according to a 2009 study backed by the UN Development Programme
77,400
The number of people believed to be affected by the current nationality law, according to the 2009 UN study
4,926
This is how many Lebanese-Palestinian households there were in Lebanon in 2016, according to a census by the Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee
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Biography
Favourite drink: Must have karak chai and Chinese tea every day
Favourite non-Chinese food: Arabic sweets and Indian puri, small round bread of wheat flour
Favourite Chinese dish: Spicy boiled fish or anything cooked by her mother because of its flavour
Best vacation: Returning home to China
Music interests: Enjoys playing the zheng, a string musical instrument
Enjoys reading: Chinese novels, romantic comedies, reading up on business trends, government policy changes
Favourite book: Chairman Mao Zedong’s poems
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