Morning Glory: Last of the Pakistani crew arrives today

Ghufran Marghoob is one of the six Pakistanis who were on board the Morning Glory.

KARACHI:

The last of the Pakistani crew members of the hijacked vessel Morning Glory, Chief Officer Ghufran Marghoob will be returning home on this morning.

The vessel’s five crew members – Captain Mirza Nauman Baig, Second Officer Mehdi Shamsi, Third Officer Syed Asif Hassan and Naik Zada and Muhammad Irshad – arrived in Pakistan on April 5.

Chief Officer Ghufran Marghoob had, however, stayed back on the request of the Libyan government to help in the vessel’s offloading.

Hassan, Ghufran’s elder brother, confirmed to The Express Tribune that his brother was reaching Karachi today. “We are very happy. My brother was handed over to the Pakistani embassy in Libya on Monday and now he is coming home.”

Hassan said he spoke to his brother via Skype after he was handed to the Pakistani authorities. “He seemed to be in good health. I thought that Ghufran would have long hair and an unkempt beard, but he was clean and neat.”

During the video chat, Ghufran was also able to see his wife and their one-year-old son, he said.

The six Pakistanis were part of a 21-member crew onboard Morning Glory oil tanker, which was hijacked by Libyan rebels in March when it was on its way Tunisia.

The armed Libyans offloaded the country’s oil on the vessel and forced the crew to move the ship out of Libyan territory.

However, the ship was rescued by US Navy Seals after an operation near Cyprus. They also took three armed rebels into their custody, and moved the vessel back to Libya.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 23^rd, 2014.