NEW DELHI: Six exhausted Indian sailors say Somali pirates tortured them and they nearly starved, but the joyful men freed after 11 months saw their return home Friday as a rebirth. “The pirates would get drunk and beat us. They would use anything they could get their hands on to beat us. We were sure they would kill us,” N.K. Sharma, one of the sailors, told reporters. Huge crowds thronged the New Delhi airport as tearful family members greeted the six sailors with marigold garlands and sweets. Cheering crowds and television crews mobbed the men as they emerged from the airport lobby amid hugs and tears from overjoyed family members. “This is a rebirth for me. The joy I feel cannot be expressed in words,” Sharma said as he embraced his wife and children. The men were freed after a $2.1 million ransom was paid to secure the release of the merchant navy ship pirates captured in the Indian Ocean. “There were days when everything was dark. There would be very little light. We would be in darkness,” Sharma said. “Sometimes we had water to drink, often times we had nothing to drink, or very little for days.” Sharma said they survived on rice, spaghetti and potatoes. A Pakistan-based organization, The Ansar Burney Trust, had negotiated the release of the 22 sailors aboard the MV Suez after the pirates demanded nearly $30 million. They settled for $2.1 million before releasing the crew that included 11 Egyptians, six Indians, four Pakistanis and one Sri Lankan. India's external affairs minister S.M. Krishna said he was relieved the sailors' ordeal had ended. “We appreciate the timely help extended to them and sailors of other countries, by the Pakistani navy,” Krishna said. He called for a well-coordinated global response to wipe out the scourge of piracy.
