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By Arvind Nair
FOR 10 days I did not have food, said released hostage P K Abhilash, about his 74-day harrowing experience in the jungles of Sudan.
Abhilash, 27, a pipe designer from India, was taken captive on May 13 by members of the Messeria tribe. Along with him, three other Indians and their Sudanese driver were also caught in an area adjoining Sudan’s disputed oil district of Abyei.
All the four were working for Petro Energy Contracting Services, which provides technical services to the oil industry. Two of the oil workers had already escaped and a third went missing in the jungle at the end of May.
Abhilash was released on May 24 and was transiting Doha yesterday on way home in Kerala’s North Paravur district.
Abhilash doesn’t know if any ransom was paid by his employers. But, Satish Pillai, general manager of his former employers in Doha, Galfar al-Misnad, an engineering and contracting company, said there were rumours of an original demand for $100,000. This was later reduced to $30,000 but eventually $35,000 seemed to have been paid, Pillai said yesterday.
“We were returning to our camp at Heglig from work at Neem oilfield when we were blocked by some 10 armed people. They asked the Sudanese driver to drive to the jungle.
“In the jungle, they told us they will not harm us and that we will be released soon,” said Abhilash, sitting in the Indian ambassador’s office yesterday.
They drove again and shifted camps a few times. On May 18, the captors asked for the company’s telephone numbers but nothing happened in the following few days.
“On May 30, we heard a firing sound and early next morning, we shifted camp again when it was still dark.”
In the following days, Abhilash and fellow captive, Surjit Singh tried to escape while their captors slept. As they stepped out of the tent, Surjit stepped over a twig and it broke. The hostage-takers woke up but Surjit still ran away but Abhilash was caught. But, they moved camp again.
On day 32, an English speaking Sudanese came and told Abhilash that his employers were being informed.
In the meantime, Abhilash got the use of a satellite phone and he called his former colleague in Doha, Gopan, the only number he could remember then. Unknown to Abhilash, the call set a process in motion to get him released.
Gopan informed his boss Salaudeen and Satish Pillai. Pillai roped in Indian Nationals Abroad (INA), whose president Nizar Kocheri agreed to help.
The Indian government had sent a special envoy to Sudan to seek the release of the captives.
In between, the captors allowed him to speak to his family in Kerala. On day 59, he tried to escape again at night. He covered some distance but was caught again and badly beaten up.
Abhilash said he was well treated and was harmed only when he tried to run away. He was given uncooked rice often. At other times, he was offered the local meal called Aseeda. Game meat and other food items were also given whenever they had.
But when they fled one place, they had to leave everything behind and that was when they had to go without food for four days. Sometimes they survive on dates and fruits in the jungle.
They had a plastic tent with mosquito nets and mats to sleep on. At no time, he said, he was scared for his life. There had been kidnappings before and they were all eventually released. This had given him a ray of hope. He was released on July 24. But before that he was made to walk for several days.
Now, his first priority is to go home and see his parents and siblings. He said he hadn’t decided about his future though his employers had offered to give him a job at the headquarters in Khartoum.
He also has the option of returning to Galfar which was willing to take him back, Pillai said.
Abyei and surrounding areas are prone to sporadic violence between tribes aligned either with the government or with the administration in the south despite a 2005 peace deal that ended the civil war.
The incident marks the first Indian kidnapping in the oil-rich African country.
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