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Red Sea Peril "When Shirley and Peter Billing decided to circumnavigate the globe in 1983, they were so stunned by the beauty of their voyage that they decided to extend it to take in the Red Sea. An impromptu stop in Eritrea proved disastrous....."..  Map of Eritrea |
Yemeni and Eritrea were fighting over the Hanish Islands at the time, so they kept as close to the coast as they could, sailing in convoy with other boats when possible. As the sun went down one evening, and they could no longer see the coral, they decided to anchor for the night.
Soldiers came and looked at their passports. Then they came back and said that they would have to move the boat. It transpired that they had anchored between the Hanish Islands and an Army camp. Trouble was brewing and nobody in the world knew what was happening to them.
After a couple of days Shirley and Peter were taken to Assab, a 150 km further south to be interrogated again. Assab is a very poor town indeed. Every part of its infrastructure has be stripped away. They were imprisoned and interrogated, this time by the Commander of the Navy. He wanted to know their history on the boat. Since they'd been on it for twenty years, this was not a short tale.
One morning they were flown to Asmara, but their tickets were one-way, and had false names on them.
In Asmara, they were taken to a room at the back of what later turned out to be the Khartoum Hotel. They were there for 17 days initially with tight security. But is soon became relaxed.
One day a young Irish man came into the hotel restaurant. He was told not to talk to them, and to their horror, turned away from them as if in compliance. But he managed to smuggle their passport numbers out, went to the consulate, and the next day the French ambassador stormed in to the hotel.
When Peter and Shirley's son got a message about his parents from the French, he contacted their friend Basil. Basil had flown had flown to Asmara for Italian ice-cream during the war. He contacted the Times and the BBC on their behalf. The morning after an article appeared in the Times, they were taken to the Ministry of Security. There they were apologised to for being held for so long.  Red Sea Peril |
Shirley has written a book of their experiences, called Red Sea Peril. She and Peter plan to complete the circumnavigation next year, twenty years after they first began it.
More information:
Red Sea Peril
by Shirley Billing, published by Sheridan House, ISBN:1574 091379.
Eritrea Index
has information on what happened to the Hanish Islands
CIA - information about Eritrea
For the CIA's take on Eritrea
Consular information on Eritrea
If you are thinking of a trip to Eritrea.
If danger is your middle name
tell us about it.... | |
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