The bodies of seven suspected pirates have washed up on the shores of Somalia after a group of Egyptian fishermen overpowered them to escape following four months in captivity.

Witnesses told Al Jazeera that a number of the bodies found on Saturday had bullet wounds from their scuffles with their captives.

The crewmen from two Egyptian vessels captured off the coast of Yemen were travelling back to Egypt with eight of their former captors, Mohammad Nasr, the owner of one of the boats, said.

He said that the 33 fishermen had turned down an offer from the Egyptian government for them to be flown back from Yemen.

Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow, reporting from Nairobi, Kenya, said: “The Egyptian fishermen are sailing home, but have declined to be airlifted as they have said it will be fitting if they can sail home.

“It will have been a very harrowing experience … captives are sometimes held by men who are high on drugs, they are holding guns, they are very well-armed.”

According to a Yemeni businessman who hired the boats, Ahmed Samara and Momtaz 1, the fishermen on both vessels co-ordinated their attack on Thursday and some of the pirates even co-operated with them.”The crew on both boats started their operations at one time. They were co-ordinating among themselves,” Mohamed Alnahdi, the executive manager of Mashrq Marine Product, said.

Alnahdi said that he had been in the town of Bossaso in Somalia for more than a month trying to negotiate their release, but talks had become deadlocked over the amount of ransom to be paid.

The pirates had reportedly  been celebrating the release of an Italian tugboat, which had been taken alongside the two Egyptian fishing boats, for which they had been paid $4m in ransom when the Egyptians made their move.

Pirate attacks have more than doubled in the first half of 2009, with 130 cases taking place in the Gulf of Aden, according to international maritime officials.

International naval patrols in the region have failed to halt the attacks.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

Photo: The Egyptian fishermen are sailing home with
four of their former captives (Al Jazeera)

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