VILNIUS - Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite announced the good news on Aug. 14 that all the sailors who had been kidnapped in Nigeria from the Lithuanian-flagged ship Saturnas were released, alive and healthy. She made the call to Liudmila Triskina, wife of the ship's captain. The captain, together with four other sailors, had been held hostage in Nigeria since Aug. 3.
On Aug. 17, the five former hostages landed at Lithuania's Palanga Airport, looking very tired. The ship's captain Sergejus Triskinas said that Nigerian doctors already examined them. "Nigerian doctors are good and Nigerian people are good, except those who kidnapped us. We sang songs to keep our spirits high," Triskinas said refusing to answer if they were beaten by kidnappers.
Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usackas, on Aug. 14, held a press conference in the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry to mark the good news. "I would like to thank the Limarko Shipping Company [the Klaipeda-based owner of the ship]. Its lawyers were active in Nigeria. I also would like to thank the European Union diplomats who kept knocking on Nigerian government doors during the crisis," Usackas said, adding that the Lithuanian government was not involved in any negotiations over ransom.
Lithuania has no diplomatic mission in Nigeria. Lithuanian citizens' consular interests are represented by the German embassy there. When EU citizens are in a country outside the EU, where their country is not represented by a permanent consular post or a diplomatic mission, they have the right to request the consular protection of any other EU member state. Every person holding the citizenship of an EU member state is automatically an EU citizen.
Director general of the Limarko Shipping Company Vytautas Lygnugaris said that ransom was not paid. Lygnugaris said that the sailors were just woken up one morning and brought by boat to an empty beach and released there. Seeing the Europeans on the beach, the locals called the police.
Lygnugaris said more about the sailors' condition during the hostage crisis. "They were kept in a military base or some sort of military base. Their kidnappers were wearing military uniforms. The hostage holders were well armed and well trained," Lygnugaris said. He added that the kidnapping took place during a 60-day cease-fire between the rebel groups and the Nigerian government. Lygnugaris could not say if the kidnappers were members of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the most powerful rebel group in Nigeria. "Maybe the kidnappers wanted to demonstrate that they are some power there," he speculated.
