The crew informed a nearby ship by radio earlier that they had been detained, but were unclear as to who was holding them. However, Marina Gordeyeva, citing the Russian ambassador in the northeast African country, said the arrest seems to have been carried out by officials.
The Svenja, owned by Kamchatka's Yacht Racing Federation, was seized while docking on the Eritrean coast after running out of fuel in stormy weather, according to a radio-message received by a nearby Russian ship, which then informed Kamchatka authorities of the incident by e-mail.
Gordeyeva said Kamchatka Governor Mikhail Mashkovtsev and a Russian Foreign Ministry representative in the Kamchatka Region had asked Nikolai Trutsuk, the Russian ambassador to Eritrea, to contact officials in Eritrea and clarify the situation.
"Through the talks, Trutsuk managed to ascertain that the Kamchatka yacht had docked near a closed military base, so it would appear that their documents were seized by officials," the spokeswoman said.
After the initial reports, it was uncertain whether Eritrean authorities or an armed group had detained the crew. The two men, one of whom is the yacht federation's chief Yevgeny Panchenko, had their identification documents and navigation charts seized by armed people, according to Panchenko.
The spokeswoman said the Russian ambassador had informed the United Nations about the situation, and had promised Governor Mashkovtsev to keep him informed on further developments.
