The release of the captured Bangladeshi ship MV Abdullah along with all its crew by the Somali pirates, some three days after Eid ul Fitr and thirty-three days after the initial hijacking, came as a relief to all, and a decidedly pleasant surprise. We may recall Somali pirates hijacked MV Jahan Moni, owned by the same KSRM Group, in 2010, when it took the authorities 99 days to free the ship. By that comparison, the 23 crew members of MV Abdullah, and their family members back home, can consider themselves very lucky. All that remains now is for them to reach the port of the UAE, where they are being escorted by a special patrol of the EU naval force. From there, they will be flown back to Bangladesh.

The news has been met with feverish speculation over whether a ransom was paid, and if so, how much it was. Some videos have been circulating in social media of something being airdropped on the water, and some outlets have reported it contained a payment of $5 million dollars for the pirates, and that is what bought their freedom. Their source for this happens to be the pirates themselves. You can make of that what you will, but I would contend that is a patently unreliable source. And we are almost certain to get nothing from official ones, since they will be bound by certain rules and norms related to negotiations in these situations. If piracy becomes officially recognised as a lucrative trade, it may end up encouraging more such endeavours in future. The pirates or the Red or Arabian seas, or for that matter the larger canvas of the Indian Ocean, tend to be disparate groups not necessarily working with each other, so the success of one in getting a huge payday may set precedents that make such negotiations in the future more difficult. For the sake of balancing the interests of all parties involved, it is best left unsaid.

That the crew would be well-fed and generally well taken care of, was expected, since that is the best way for the pirates themselves to extract the most they could from the negotiations, in which US, UK, European and Kenyan officials were seemingly involved. The UK-based insurer of MV Abdullah, the P and I Club, would have done most of the work on behalf of the owners.

The Somali pirates were a bit of a throwback of course, at a time when the same shipping lanes have been threatened by the tensions in the Middle East of course, that has seen the Houthis in Yemen in particular, threaten Israel-connected vessels with capture s long as the slaughter in Gaza continues. The marine defence capabilities needed to protect shipping in these times from attacks by pirates are somewhat different- requiring on board gunmen or escort ships, making the entire enterprise significantly more expensive. It doesn't bode well for businesses involved in export in the days ahead, but for now, we may breathe a sigh of relief at the fate of MV Abdullah at least.