A South Korean trawler held captive by Somali militiamen for more than three months docked in Kenya on Saturday, a week after gunmen freed its 25-member crew, Reuters reported. The trawler's crew waved as they disembarked at Kenya's Mombasa port, where they were greeted by cheers and applause from dozens of diplomats, maritime officials and journalists. The trawler was seized by eight armed men in two speedboats who accused it of fishing illegally and may have been pirates. "We were not tortured but there was a lot of tension as the rescue mission continued," Vietnamese sailor Nguyen Xuan Qua told Reuters. "We did not know when we were going home. All our lives hung in the balance." The gunmen were paid more than $400,000 to release the ship, owned by Dongwon Fisheries Co. Ltd., said Andrew Mwangura of the Seafarers Assistance Programme, an east African maritime organisation. The crew of the 628 Dongwon-ho, who come from South Korea, Indonesia, China and Vietnam, will be flown home from Kenya, leaving the captain and a replacement crew to take the ship back to South Korea, he said.
