Islamabad, Pakistan – When Ayesha Ameen was leaving her house last week for a chore, her three-year-old daughter Zimal tugged at her sleeve and asked if she was finally going to the airport to pick up her father.“How do you tell a three-year-old that her father is held captive and cannot come home?” Ayesha, 26, told Al Jazeera. “How can anybody answer that?”Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listZimal’s father, Ameen bin Shams, 29, has been held hostage on board an oil tanker off the coast of Somalia for nearly two weeks. He is among 10 Pakistani sailors in the 17-member crew of the MT Honour 25, seized by Somali pirates on April 21. Besides the Pakistani nationals, the ship’s crew consists of four Indonesians – including the MT Honour’s captain – as well as one each from Sri Lanka, Myanmar and India.Ameen’s daughter asks about him every day. His four-month-old son, Rahim, born on December 24, two weeks after Ameen left on his first merchant navy contract, has never met his father.‘It was his dream’Ameen had spent years working at a shipyard in Karachi before securing his first posting on board a merchant vessel. He joined the MT Honour 25 on December 9 through a Karachi-based crewing agency, serving as a fitter. The family lives in Malir Khokhrapar, a lower-middle-class neighbourhood of Pakistan’s biggest city.The months before the hija …
