C T Online Desk: The 23 sailors of the ship are set to land at Kabir Group’s jetty in the port city’s Sadarghat on Tuesday afternoon, an official says.
MV Abdullah, the Bangladeshi-flagged ship freed from Somali pirates, is close to Kutubdia in the Bay of Bengal. The vessel is set to anchor at the Kutubdia channel in the evening. The sailors will arrive at the KSRM jetty in Chattogram’s Sadarghat a day after it arrives in Bangladesh.
Mizanul Islam, a spokesperson for Kabir Group, the parent company of the vessel’s owner SR Shipping said, “MV Abdullah will dock at the Kutubdia channel at 6pm. They will start unloading products there later.”
“The sailors of the ship will arrive at the KSRM jetty in the port city’s Sadarghat at 4pm on Tuesday. Media workers will have a chance to talk to them there.”
The ship is carrying 56,000 tonnes of stone. It will unload some of the stone in Kutubdia and then it will come to Chattogram port to unload the rest of the cargo at the outer anchorage, he said.
On Mar 12, Somali pirates seized control of the MV Abdullah and took the 23 sailors on board hostage. The vessel was transporting 55,000 tonnes of coal from Mozambique to the United Arab Emirates at the time.
After spending 33 days in captivity, the pirates left the ship around 3am on Apr 13. After that, the ship left for the Al Hamriya Port in Dubai.
The MV Abdullah unloaded the coal at Mina Saqr port in the UAE and took on the stone before resuming its journey to Bangladesh on May 1 after refuelling at Fujairah port in the UAE.
Two months after being held hostage, the 23 sailors of the MV Abdullah, all of whom are Bangladeshis, are returning home.
The captain of the ship, Mohammad Abdur Rashid, had previously said that all the sailors were doing well and were looking forward to returning home and seeing their loved ones.
