27 May 2010

Somalia hostages: Chandlers’ life in captivity

British yachting couple Paul and Rachel Chandler, kidnapped by Somali pirates seven months ago, describe the “mental torture” of almost 100 days in solitary confinement.

The Chandlers have been kept separate by their kidnappers for nearly half of their seven months in captivity – allowed only the occasional short phone call as a point of contact.

The couple, from Tunbridge Wells in Kent, had previously never been apart for more than a few days after 29 years of marriage with no children.

The kidnappers allowed the couple to reunite in captivity just seven weeks ago – after abducting the Chandlers from their yacht in October as they sailed between the Seychelles and Tanzania.

Paul Chandler, 60, said: “We don’t have children so we’re very close to each other. We’ve never been apart for more than a few days, we’ve been married almost 30 years, so to be separated is real torture”

“We refused to be separated initially, and that was a bit silly,” Paul continued.

“We were physically separated, we were whipped and Rachel was hit with a rifle butt and has a broken tooth. It’s a long time ago, the wounds have healed. And that was the only occasion, only one occasion, when we had any real aggression.”

Now reunited, the couple said they can look after each other, and survive together. “Simply not knowing what was happening and whether we would be together – when, where each other was, was real torture, mental torture,” Rachel Chandler said.

Last week around 10 pirates drove them in two 4×4 cars to a secret location in the African bush, somewhere between the Somali towns of Haradheere on the coast and Adado, about 200 miles inland, where the couple were allowed to talk freely to Somali journalist, Jamal Osman.

During an ITN exclusive broadcast last night the couple appealed with new British Prime Minister David Cameron to help them.

“I’d like to say congratulations to David Cameron first and as new prime minister we desperately need him to make a definitive public statement of the government’s attitude to us,” Paul said.

“We’re two British citizens, we’ve been kidnapped in the Seychelles, it was a perfectly safe place to be.

“If the government is not prepared to help, then they must say so, because the gangsters’ expectations and hopes have been raised at the thought of a new government and there might be a different approach.”

‘We miss everything’

The Chandlers were last filmed in January, where it was clear Rachel had lost weight and was in distress.

Appearing in reasonable health when they were filmed the couple sent their families a message of defiance and love.

“We are being strong for them because they keep us going, knowing that they are there supporting us, and doing everything,” Rachel said.

“We know that they’re doing their best. It has been seven months and we know they must have been suffering alongside us, and we care about them very much.”

Paul said: “There’s one thing that is important and that is freedom. We don’t have it. Nothing else matters really, I would say. We don’t miss any thing, we miss everything.”

After seven months in captivity the Chandler’s daily challenge is filling time. They say they brush their teeth for ten minutes on end, and keep playing card games just to survive the tedium of hostage life.

“The only thing that is difficult is the lack of privacy,” Rachel Chandler said. “But I am now so used to them that I just go and find a bush to wash and use the toilet, and if they see me, that’s their problem. I have to make do and, you know, one does.”

‘A laughing stock’

The capture and looting of their yacht, the ‘Lynn Rival’, which the couple sold their house to buy, is still what upsets Mrs Chandler the most.

“The very worst experience, and the experience that made me realise that our lives had changed forever, was when we were forced to abandon Lynn Rival,” she said.

“And I can’t think about it without bringing tears to my eyes, because that was the moment, having spent six days having our home, our boat which was our home, ransacked by these people and then having to abandon her was the very worst experience, and when I realised that nothing would ever be the same again.”

What pains the Chandlers even more is that a Royal Navy refuelling ship, the Wave Knight, was just a hundred metres or so away when the pirates were aboard the Chandler’s yacht. Though instead of storming the boat and risking casualties, the British sailors kept away.

“The fact that we’re alive and talking to you suggests that they were right to do what they did,” Paul acknowledged.

“But it really makes them – the whole, that fleet of warships – a laughing stock and that is what they are, a laughing stock for these people. They can’t do anything.”

Though the pirates holding the Chandlers may not give up without a fight, the hostages find the courage to condemn their kidnappers outright on camera.

“They show no compassion as you and I would understand it”, Rachel said. “They are only interested in us as a vehicle for raising money, and their only interest is in keeping us alive in order to do so.”