Paul Chandler and his wife, Rachel, have appealed for help, believing their captors are losing patience

This article is more than 10 years old

This article is more than 10 years old

A Briton kidnapped by Somali pirates fears that he and his wife could be executed within days after their captors lost patience and set a deadline for a ransom to be paid.

Paul Chandler from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, who was seized with his wife Rachel when armed Somali pirates boarded their yacht, the Lynn Rival, in the early hours of 23 October, said he believed they could be killed in "three or four days".

In an interview with ITV News, Chandler, 59, said the pirates had separated him from his wife, 55, who told him in their last phone call that she was "giving up". He compared their conditions in solitary confinement to the treatment of a "captive animal".

"We tried to stay together and they threw us to the ground and whipped us and beat Rachel with the rifle butts and I was dragged off and taken to a different location," he said.

"I was allowed to telephone her about 12 days ago. She said she was being tormented all the time and said she was giving up.

"They've lost patience. They set a deadline of three or four days. If they don't hear, then they say they will let us die."

He said he was "just existing in hope", adding: "I'm afraid that they will just kill us and abandon us in the desert here."

The couple were captured as they sailed from the Seychelles towards Tanzania. They were forced to sail towards Somalia before being moved on to a hijacked container ship, the Kota Wajar. The couple have since been brought ashore and there have been reports that armed rival gangs have fought to hold them hostage.

ITV News UK editor, Angus Walker, spoke to Chandler for half an hour last night before passing on the information to the couple's family and the Foreign Office.

ITV News also spoke to Mrs Chandler tonight, who echoed her husband's fear that the pair could be killed within days.

"Please, please find a way of helping us because it really is a very desperate situation here," she said.

"I've broken a tooth because I was hit on the head with something, probably the butt of a gun … I don't know … so we have been physically attacked.

"They've just told me that if they don't get the money within four or five days they'll kill one of us."

Asked if she had a message for her husband, she said: "The message to him is hang on for me because I hope – my biggest hope is that I shall see him at least once more before we die.

"It's hard not to feel … well … dying would actually be an easy way out. "It's hard to explain but it is when you're all on your own in this country and you've no idea where you are and no idea when something might happen and whether I'll see Paul again. It's just very, very despairing."

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We are monitoring the situation very closely and are doing everything we can to help secure a release.

"We remain in regular contact with the family and are providing support. We call for the safe and swift release of Paul and Rachel."

A British naval vessel was in range when the Chandlers were first taken from their yacht but, according to military officials, the crew was unable to act without putting the couple's lives at risk.

Fleet Auxiliary replenishment tanker Wave Knight, carrying 75 merchant seamen and 25 navy sailors, could not have acted without endangering the lives of the Chandlers.

Chandler, a retired quantity surveyor, said that "with hindsight" he thought a Royal Fleet naval vessel could have attempted to rescue them. But he added that he understood why they decided against taking action.

"I don't blame them because we were told to tell them on the radio to stand off otherwise we would be killed, and there were men with guns," he said.

"They took that at face value. With hindsight that might have been the opportunity to call their bluff."

It is the second time Mr Chandler has been interviewed since he and his wife, an economist, were captured in the middle of a "dream trip" aboard their yacht.

The couple both appeared on camera in a Channel 4 interview last November.

Reports of the kidnap emerged when a news agency was contacted by a pirate called Hassan who said he had the couple captive and ransom demands would follow.

The pair were allowed to speak to journalists on the phone and, during one conversation, Mrs Chandler's brother Stephen Collett made a direct appeal to the pirates to release them.

Staff at the BBC received a call demanding a ransom of $7m (£4.4m) but the Foreign Office said it would not make concessions to hostage takers.

The US Navy is flying unmanned aircraft from the Seychelles, 1,000 miles off the east coast of Africa, to monitor the pirates' activities. A draft Nato report, published in November, called for more spy planes and satellites to be used to combat a growing threat.