Somalis boost fund to rescue yacht couple

Cape Town’s Somali community has joined the fundaising efforts to help free the Durban couple captured off their yacht by Somali pirates 16 months ago.

The undisclosed sum was handed to Vera Hecht, sister of captured Bruno Pelizzari, at an event in Bellville on Friday.

The captors of Pelizzari and his partner Deborah Calitz, both from Durban, are demanding a $1 million (R7.4m) ransom.

They were taken off their yacht Choizil on October 26, 2010, off the coast of Tanzania.

Hecht said the local Somalis learnt of her family’s plight from the internet, and called her to offer help.

Some of the money was donated by a Somali man crippled when he was attacked by a South African in a local township, according to Alas Jama, spokesman for the Somali donors, who added that even a boy of seven had donated some money.

The group, together with Hecht, also filmed a message this weekend which they said would be broadcast on various satellite and national TV channels. In it, they appeal to the international community for help in securing the release of Pelizzari and Calitz. “I’m so grateful. It was really worth it to come down to Cape Town. I’m so thankful they are helping to get this message across,” Hecht said.

Some of the Somalis said they were members of the Somali Association of South Africa. Others represented the Parow Muslim Community Trust.

Jama said: “Our message will be repeated on Somali universal television and on Arab satellite television, which Somalians will hear. “We’re happy to contribute to the cause.”

Mohamed Hadith Adam, said they saw themselves as Somali South Africans who cared about their fellow South Africans.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the actions of criminal elements who victimised this couple.”

IOL