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askygoneonfireA friend of mine, Kieran Turner, is currently a hostage on a ship just outside of Libyan waters.
He was heading up an aid convoy - one of many he has run before now - to Gaza and some sort of disagreement took place and....well, it's all pretty vague.
Original press release
CNN report
Good report from Daily Record
Guardian have picked up on it (5pm)
Tweeting and facebooking has been going on frantically all day to try and get the news to take notice (hash tag is #gazaconvoyhostages). BBC have finally picked it up - in the last couple of hours, last I heard everyone was trying to find copyright for a photo to accompany the article for the online news site.
Last I heard from those in the know; last contact was around 12pm and the boat had passed out of Libyan waters, it was surrounded by Libyan naval ships and there were negotiations taking place. No other updates since then. There was some contact with hostages whilst they were close enough to the shore to have signal on their mobiles but nothing since then.
BBC report is now up.
More info seems to be available now. Initially everyone feared the Captain of the boat had been bribed to kidnap the aid workers by those wishing to blockade the convoy - hence the frantic departure. It's now looking more and more like the Captain demanded another $100,000 on top of the $75,000 already agreed for transport. For whatever reason he decided the best way to extract that money was to sail to Egypt. Lots still doesn't add up but Egyptian authorities are apparently waiting patiently to pick them up when they enter Egyptian waters and they are still apparently surrounded by Libyan naval ships.
There seems to be reason for cautious optimism.
He was heading up an aid convoy - one of many he has run before now - to Gaza and some sort of disagreement took place and....well, it's all pretty vague.
Original press release
CNN report
Good report from Daily Record
Guardian have picked up on it (5pm)
Tweeting and facebooking has been going on frantically all day to try and get the news to take notice (hash tag is #gazaconvoyhostages). BBC have finally picked it up - in the last couple of hours, last I heard everyone was trying to find copyright for a photo to accompany the article for the online news site.
Last I heard from those in the know; last contact was around 12pm and the boat had passed out of Libyan waters, it was surrounded by Libyan naval ships and there were negotiations taking place. No other updates since then. There was some contact with hostages whilst they were close enough to the shore to have signal on their mobiles but nothing since then.
BBC report is now up.
More info seems to be available now. Initially everyone feared the Captain of the boat had been bribed to kidnap the aid workers by those wishing to blockade the convoy - hence the frantic departure. It's now looking more and more like the Captain demanded another $100,000 on top of the $75,000 already agreed for transport. For whatever reason he decided the best way to extract that money was to sail to Egypt. Lots still doesn't add up but Egyptian authorities are apparently waiting patiently to pick them up when they enter Egyptian waters and they are still apparently surrounded by Libyan naval ships.
There seems to be reason for cautious optimism.