KARACHI: The turmoil of over five months for the crew of the hijacked oil tanker MT Honour 25 and their families ended with the arrival of the bodies of three seamen and four injured survivors at the Karachi airport on Sunday.
Rafiullah Khan, Syed Kashif Umer and Mahmood Ahmed Ansari were the three seamen who did not survive. Ameen Bin Shams, Usman Ghani, Yasir Khan and Aqeel Khan returned injured.
Families of the deceased arrived at the Pakistan Airports Authority Export Cargo Terminal well before the Ethiopian Airlines flight landed. Ambulances from the Edhi Foundation, Chhipa Welfare Association and the Sindh Integrated Emergency and Health Services lined the roads.
Bakht Roidar, the father of 37-year-old oiler Rafiullah, waited to collect his son’s remains, saying he is proud of him.
“He is a martyr. You don’t shed tears for martyrs. I have explained it to my entire family,” Roidar said, holding his late son’s 11-year-old boy close.
“Rafiullah’s colleagues tell me that he must have known that it was going to end this way for him,” Roidar said. “He said goodbye to them as they were marched out on the ship’s deck by the Somali pirates. Then when they opened fire, he was hit in the neck by a bullet.”
This was Rafiullah’s first assignment at sea. Roidar explained that due to regional conflicts, Indian and Filipino mariners were refusing assignments, leading shipping companies to hire Pakistanis almost instantly.
He noted that this was how Rafiullah was employed, adding that the companies needed workers and they needed to support their families.
Meanwhile, Syed Umer Farooq, the aged father of Second Officer Syed Kashif Umer, sat waiting on the front seat of an ambulance while his grandson, Izhar Kashif, was inside the cargo terminal to receive the casket. “My eldest grandson is as brave as his father, my son,” Farooq said. “He could not appear for his A-Levels in May-June because he could not concentrate with his father held hostage on the ship. Now his exams are to commence on Oct 12, and he is receiving his father’s body.”
Seeing the amount of security at the airport for politicians and officials, Muzzamil Ansari, son of Third Engineer Mahmood Ahmed Ansari, said they were receiving caring messages from them. “Since April 21, when the ship was hijacked by Somali pirates, we left no stone unturned in reaching out to the government, which failed to do anything for the release of these 10 Pakistani hostages onboard the hijacked ship,” he said.
“We called for help, but they ignored us. When we came out on the roads to protest ourselves, we were beaten with batons and arrested,” he added.
Similarly, Masood Ahmed Ansari, the brother of the deceased engineer, expressed deep frustration over having to wait for officials who chose to receive the injured first. Only one of two family members of the deceased seamen was allowed to proceed towards the cargo terminal through the side to receive the deceased.
Family members walked a lengthy distance to the cargo terminal, as the large gates were opened only for government vehicles and security staff.
Earlier, at the Jinnah Terminal, the four injured seamen reunited with their families. Two of them, Ameen and Adeel, were in wheelchairs, while the remaining were able to walk. As they exited arrivals, security personnel with the governor and ministers pushed aside family members, including children, to make way for the VIPs to meet the survivors first.
Among the politicians who arrived were Sindh Governor Syed Nehal Hashmi, provincial ministers Saeed Ghani and Nasir Hussain Shah, and Dr Farooq Sattar and Waseem Akhtar.
Later, Sindh Governor Syed Muhammad Nehal Hashmi reached Manora by boat and attended the funeral of Rafiullah Khan. After the burial, the governor also met the victim’s family members.
Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2026
