UN:Crackdown on Somalia pirates shows signs of success
The Source: www.nation.co.ke/News/africa - 31/05/2009
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An international crackdown
on piracy off Somalia’s coast has yielded around 100 arrests and put bandits operating near the Horn of Africa on the defensive, US and UN officials said on Friday. “The international maritime presence is increasingly successful,” UN special envoy to Somalia Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah told reporters.It is successful because pirates have to go further away. As a result, pirates have to spend more of the ransom money they receive to hijack ships and avoid arrest,” he added. “Many (pirates) have been captured. We have about 100 already arrested. I don’t know how many disappeared. ... I think financiers behind them are also aware that they are being watched,” said Ould-Abdallah.Foreign navies have been deployed off the coast of the lawless Horn of Africa state since the turn of the year to try to prevent piracy that has flourished in busy Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean shipping lanes. Somali pirates in recent months have seized several cargo ships and collected tens of millions of dollars in ransom for the safe release of crews and cargoes.Figures for the first five months of 2009 show piracy off Somalia, which has been mired in civiwar and without a proper government for 18 years, had actually worsened. In 2008, there were more than 100 pirate attacks in the region, with more than 40 successful hijackings.This year, around 100 attacks have been registered, including more than 25 successful hijackings. “The issue is getting worse,” Somalia’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Omaar told reporters as he pleaded for aid to help his country build an effective coast guard.Separately, the so-called Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia yesterday signed a declaration supporting measures to be taken by the group to help counter Somali piracy. The contact group includes the United States, the European Union, NATO and the United Nations. Greg Delawie, a US envoy present at the signing ceremony, told reporters those measures would include apprehending and prosecuting pirates and supporting the creation of effective coast guards in the region. Omaar said an effective Somali coast guard could help put an end to piracy in the country’s waters, with money needed to get it running
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