British hostage being driven insane by three-month Somali kidnap ordeal

Published on Sunday 31 January 2010 21:32

A BRITISH woman taken hostage with her husband while sailing in the Indian Ocean more than three months ago has said she is struggling to stay sane in captivity.

A gaunt looking Rachel Chandler, 56, who is being kept separate from her husband Paul, said they were being treated "cruelly" by the Somali pirates who kidnapped the.

She begged to be reunited with him and pleaded for help to secure their release in a new film broadcast yesterday.

The couple, from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, were captured while sailing from the Seychelles towards Tanzania in their yacht Lynn Rival on 23 October.

They have previously spoken of their fears they will be killed, as the pirates' demands for money prove fruitless.

The Foreign Office has reiterated its stance that it would not pay a ransom for the couple.

Mrs Chandler, who told a medic who was allowed to examine the couple that she was suffering from insomnia and struggling to stay sane in the face of their plight, said: "If I was with my husband, I would feel a lot better.

"It's because I am not with my husband that I am feeling so lonely and desperate, and finding it difficult to sleep.

"I need to be with Paul. We are husband and wife. We have always been together and we look after one another.

"I am 56 years old and my husband is 60 years old – we are not young people. These people are treating us so cruelly."

The video was recorded last Thursday and smuggled out of Somalia.

In a separate scene in the film, Mr Chandler said: "I just want to say please, to my government, get me and my wife out of here.

"We are innocent, we have done no wrong.

"We have no money and we can't pay a ransom.

"We just need the government to help – anyone who can help get us out of here.

"We're kept day after day – this is 98 days today of solitary confinement, no exercise.

"I don't know what to do. Will somebody please help? The government or somebody else."

The medic who examined the couple, Mohamed Helmi Hangul, reportedly found Mr Chandler to be in a better state of health than his wife – although both have lost weight.

"She is sick, she is very anxious, she suffers from insomnia," Dr Hangul said.

"She's very confused, she's always asking about her husband – 'Where's my husband, where's my husband?' – and she seems completely disorientated."

Dr Hangul said Mr Chandler "had a bad cough and seemed to have some fever".

The surgeon told how it had taken him three weeks to get permission from the pirates to visit the couple.

He said he had not been allowed to take drugs with him but had left a prescription with the Chandlers' captors.

The doctor went on: "I gave them some advice and told them, 'Your hostages can die. All you want is money, so treat them well, let them reunite.'

"They said that they agreed, but I cannot be sure what they've done."

Last week, Foreign Secretary David Miliband insisted the government would not get involved in any ransom payments to secure the Chandlers' release. He said he could not stop private individuals from pursuing the possibility of a ransom deal, but insisted that the government had always made it clear that making concessions to hostage-takers was not in Britain's interests.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We are monitoring the situation very closely and are doing everything we can to help secure a release. We remain in regular contact with the family and are providing support.

"We call for the safe and swift release of Paul and Rachel."

The Chandlers, who have been married for 28 years, took early retirement about three years ago to sail across the world.

In an entry on a website in June, they wrote that they were headed for Tanzania, after initially delaying a voyage there "because of the Somali pirate problem".

In a television interview broadcast last November, the Chandlers were seen surrounded by armed men, some of whom had their guns pointed directly at the retired couple.

"I have no doubt that they will not hesitate to kill us in a week or so from now," Mr Chandler said in the interview.