Reghu and Jayakumar finally united

Akhil Reghu 26 was among seven Indian sailors who were captured after Houthi rebels hijacked a civilian cargo vessel in the Red Sea in January. His wife Jithina Jayakumar (23) who was studying medicine in Ukraine – then began emailing and calling government officials to ensure his safe return.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, she faced another ordeal of safely leaving the war-hit country while still keeping her effectors going. Reghu and his colleagues were finally released last week after spending 112 days in detention in Yemen.

Now Reghu and Jayakumar are back in Kerala’s Kochi district where her father is being treated for cancer. Jayakumar said, “ the last four months felt like they were between life and death”.

Reghu and Jayakumar got married in Kerala last August. A month later he joined Rwabee, a United Arab Emirates-flagged cargo ship, as a deck cadet. Ms. Jayakumar returned to Kyiv Medical University, where she was a sixth-year student. On the morning of 2 January 2022, the crew of Rwabee heard firing from the stern of the ship. Around 40 men in small boats had surrounded the ship, They all came on board. That’s when the crew realised the ship had been hijacked. The Houthi rebels capture Rwabee because they thought it was carrying military supplies to Saudi Arabia. Yemen has been ravaged by a conflict between the Saudi-backed official government and rebels for more than seven years. The captors moved the 11-member crew back and forth every 15 days between the ship and a hotel in Yemen’s capital Sanas. For the first two months, the captives were allowed to speak to their families on the phone once every 25 days- this was later reduced to once a fortnight.

Meanwhile, in Kyiv, Jayakumar realised something was wrong when her husband didn’t answer his phone for days.  When the war began Jayakumar and her friends were forced to shelter in an underground bunker.

In April, the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels agreed to a two-month truce when the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began. The Indian government then managed with the help of Oman and other countries to get the sailors released.