MOMBASA, KENYA — The first slivers of information about crew members' dramatic battle to regain control of their U.S.-flagged ship from Somali pirates emerged Saturday night as the Maersk Alabama finally docked in this Kenyan port.
From the ship's deck, exhausted crewmen shouted about heroism, and one pumped his fist in the air in jubilation as they approached the dock in the darkness.
But the men's relief was tempered by the knowledge that their captain, Richard Phillips, was hundreds of miles away off the coast of Somalia, drifting with desperate pirates in a lifeboat that had run out of fuel. Saturday was his fourth day in captivity. A day earlier, Phillips had tried to escape by jumping overboard, but was immediately recaptured by the pirates.
Details are sketchy, but Phillips had reportedly surrendered himself to the pirates to secure the safety of the 19 crew members.
With a heavy security cordon in place at the Mombasa port, and a screen of shipping containers erected to protect crew members' privacy, access was limited. But a couple of crew members spoke to reporters, and told of other heroic acts.
"Hey, this guy's a hero!" one said, indicating the ship's chief engineer, A.T.M. Reza. He described how Reza managed to lure one of the pirates into a trap in the engine room. Details of the saga were obscured as reporters shouted questions, and it was not known whether the pirate whom Reza nabbed later managed to flee with the captain.
In another attack Saturday off the coast of Somalia, a lawless country that has had no stable government since 1991, pirates hijacked a tugboat and were holding its mostly Italian 16-member crew as hostages, maritime officials in Kenya said. The tugboat is Italian-flagged, but its ownership was unclear.
The latest hijacking brought the current total of pirated ships to more than 20, with about 300 hostages.
As the U.S. drama continued, family members of the four pirates who are holding Phillips and elders from their hometowns gathered Saturday at the Somali coast in an attempt to help end the standoff between the captors and the U.S. destroyer Bainbridge, which is monitoring the situation nearby.
"They wanted to free the captain without ransom and arrange to take the pirates back home safely," said Abdi Gaariye Samatar, who is part of a pirate gang in the Somali port city of Eyl.
"The elders are worried about the American warships surrounding the pirates," he said.
