The crew members of the Moscow University tanker that was seized by Somali pirates and then released will return home on Tuesday, the mother of one of the sailors said on Monday.
Lyudmila Ivanova said the captain of the tanker, Yury Tulchinsky, and several crew members including her son Sergei Kotsenko would be among those to arrive on Tuesday.
The mother said she was preparing to welcome her son home. "He asked me to cook chicken with apples for him," she said.
The Russian tanker with 23 Russian crewmembers and 86,000 tons of oil was hijacked by Somali pirates on May 5 when it was on its way from Sudan to China. The pirates attacked the vessel 350 miles east of the Gulf of Aden. The following day, Russian Navy commandos from the large anti-submarine warship Marshal Shaposhnikov freed the tanker during a 22-minute operation. Ten attackers were detained, one killed. None of the crew members was injured.
The Novorossiisk shipping company that owns the Moscow University had no comment on the sailors' return. Novoship earlier said it had a crew ready to relieve the hijack victims.
Meanwhile the commander of the Russian naval task force in the Gulf of Aden, Capt. First Rank Ildar Akhmerov, said Russian commandos from the Marshal Shaposhnikov warship had had no orders to kill the pirates during the operation to release the tanker.
"The task of eliminating the pirates during the operation to free the tanker was not put before us," Akhmerov told journalists. "There was one main goal - to free the tanker's crew."
The pirates were released in one of their boats after it became clear they did not fall under the jurisdiction of any state or international law. A Defense Ministry source said the pirate vessel went off radar screens after an hour and the pirates had probably perished on the open sea, leading to speculation they had been killed.
Akhmerov said the 10 pirates had been released, along with the body of one who was killed by the commandos, and pointed in the direction of Somalia.
"In a boat we gave the pirates water, food and all that remained of the junk they had with them, with the exception of the seized weapons, boarding ladders and navigational aids," he said. "The further fate of the released pirates is unknown to us."
KRASNODAR, May 17 (RIA Novosti)
