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According to the skipper of the Alakrana tuna boat Ricardo Blach, the situation is simple: "If the arrested pirates came back to Somalia, everything would be fixed, that''s what they want."

Basque public radio station Radio Euskadi were allowed to talk with Blach on Thursday afternoon, who expressed his concern about the situation of the captured seamen, 2 Galician and 1 Basque, after the crew were threatened by pirates to hand three randomly selected crew members over to the families of the two pirates currently in prison in Spain.

Spanish Defence minister Carme Chacon said that the central government knows "exactly where the three members of the crew are" and that they are "in good condition."

As Blach stated, the pirates holding the Alakrana are "increasingly nervous. They take drugs, they fight onboard... we don''t know what''s happening, but they have threatened to kill those 3 crew members."