The Ariana cargo ship with 24 Ukrainian crewmembers on board has been freed from Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, the Ukrainian president said on Thursday.
The Ariana cargo ship was hijacked by pirates 250 miles southwest of the Seychelles on May 2.
"The Ukrainian sailors have been freed. I congratulate these 24 guys, their families and all of Ukraine on this victory," Viktor Yushchenko said.
The pirates say they received a ransom of $2.5 million. However the Greek owner of the ship refused to comment.
Yushchenko said that "complicated and tense negotiations" preceded the freeing of the hostages.
"We had a complicated situation and the issue of freeing them often ended in dead-lock. This issue was constantly under my control," he said adding that the sailors would be taken home by a Ukrainian airliner in the near future.
Mykola Malomuzh, the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service, said that all the freed sailors were well.
The cargo ship was hijacked en route to the Middle East from Brazil and was carrying 35,000 metric tons of soya. The pirates escorted the ship to the Somali port of Hobyo.
KIEV, December 10 (RIA Novosti)
