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Taipei / AFP
Hostages were forced to eat mice, scorpions and centipedes to survive during the nearly five years they were held by Somali pirates, according to a Taiwanese seafarer who arrived home on Wednesday.
Shen Jui-chang, among 26 hostages freed from the crew of Naham 3 seized south of the Seychelles in March 2012, added he had constantly had a gun pointed at his head during his ordeal. Shen, the chief engineer on the fishing boat, was reunited with his wife and daughter on Tuesday in Guangzhou, southern China, after a long flight from Kenya with Chinese crew members after they were freed Sunday.
An emotional Shen arrived at Taipei’s main airport on Wednesday afternoon and said he was in “very poor physical health”. “Every day was nerve-wracking, with the pirates pointing their AK-47
rifles at me 24 hours a day,” the
frail-looking sailor told reporters.