Somali pirates demanding a $7 million ransom for the release of a captured British couple said today they had been moved on shore from a container vessel.
Gunmen kidnapped Paul and Rachel Chandler, both in their 50s, last week soon after they left the Seychelles archipelago in the Indian Ocean and took them to the Somali coast.
In a tearful phone call to her brother Stephen Collett, Ms Chandler said that they were coping with the pressure and their captors had given them food and water.
"Please don't worry about us, we are managing," she said, according to a recording of the conversation shown on Britain's ITV News. "Thank you for everything you are doing. We are safe."
One of the pirates told Reuters the couple were moved from their yacht to a large container ship because the pirates feared foreign forces might try and rescue them. The gang is finding a safe place on land to hold the two sailors.
Pirates have plagued busy shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia for several years. Foreign warships from 16 nations are patrolling the area to try and prevent hijacks, but the sea gangs are now hunting for ships far into the Indian Ocean.
The British Foreign Office said it was aware of the demand but a spokesman said: "The government isn't going to make any substantive concessions to hostage-takers, and that includes the payment of ransom."
The pirate gangs - some made up of former fishermen angered by the presence of foreign fishing fleets in Somali waters - and their backers within Somalia and abroad have made tens of millions of dollars in ransoms.
Pirates in northern Somalia also said today they had seized a Yemeni fishing vessel after a gunbattle overnight that killed one of the hijackers and wounded another.
Ransom demands are usually high to start with, but tend to be whittled down during often protracted negotiations. Pirates initially demanded at least $15 million for a supertanker with $100 million of oil on board but accepted $3 million in the end.