A group of Fishermen who had been detained on charges of illegally entering Somalia’s territorial waters in late 2017 were released and returned home on Thursday.
Following the efforts of the Foreign Ministry and Iran’s Embassy in Kenya, 17 fishermen who had drifted into Somalia territorial waters in October 2017 and were sentenced to two years in prison by a local court, were freed and handed over to the embassy in Nairobi, IRNA reported.
The freed men later returned home by air and were welcomed by deputy foreign minister, Hossein Panahi Azar, at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport.
The men were on a fishing boat when they were arrested by a Somalia patrol for entering the African country’s waters without permission last year.
Their release came two weeks after four Iranian fishermen taken captive by pirates in international waters near Somalia were released by Iran’s intelligence agents.
In a Thursday statement, Foreign Minister Spokesperson Bahram Qassemi said the Iranian fishermen were released thanks to the hard efforts and arrangements made by the Iranian Foreign Ministry over the past months.
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