**Somali pirates who have kidnapped a British couple have issued a ransom demand of $7m (£4.3m) in a call to the BBC.**Paul and Rachel Chandler, aged 59 and 55, from Tunbridge Wells in Kent, were taken hostage by gunmen in the Indian Ocean in the early hours of 23 October.
They had been travelling to Tanzania from the Seychelles and their yacht was later found in international waters.
The caller said: “If they do not harm us, we will not harm them.”
He added: “We only need a little amount of $7m.”
He said the couple had been captured by “our brothers who patrol the coast”.
Explaining the decision to set the ransom at $7m, the caller said: "Nato operations had a lot of negative impact here.
"They have destroyed a lot of equipment belonging to the poor local fishermen.
"They arrest fishermen and destroy their equipment.
"In defiance to our local administrations, they illegally transfer the fishermen to their own prisons and prisons of other countries.
“So when you consider the damage and all the people affected we say the amount is not big.”
The BBC’s East Africa Correspondent Will Ross said the pirates had held talks for several hours in Haredere on the Somali coast.
He said they were trying to agree how much money they wanted for the release of the pair.
He added that in previous cases pirates had begun negotiating with an extremely high figure, and then settled for far less.
Emergency meeting
Earlier, Somali premier Omar Sharmarke said government officials were trying to explain to the pirates the couple could offer no commercial reward and they only had their boat, the Lynn Rival.
He said the government was doing what it could for the hostages.
The UK government’s emergency committee Cobra has met in the Cabinet Office to discuss the kidnapping.
And the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner has been told by Whitehall officials that the government has appointed a hostage negotiator who is on standby to deal with the case.
Armed Somali pirates boarded the couple’s yacht in the Indian Ocean while they slept.
The pirates forced the pair to sail towards Somalia.
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