{"id":39705,"date":"2024-12-21T20:50:07","date_gmt":"2024-12-22T01:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/somali-piracy-2-0-the-bbc-meets-the-new-robbers-of-the-high-seas\/21\/12\/2024\/"},"modified":"2024-12-21T20:50:07","modified_gmt":"2024-12-22T01:50:07","slug":"somali-piracy-2-0-the-bbc-meets-the-new-robbers-of-the-high-seas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/somali-piracy-2-0-the-bbc-meets-the-new-robbers-of-the-high-seas\/21\/12\/2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Somali piracy 2.0 – the BBC meets the new robbers of the high seas"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Two Somali fishermen wearing big scarves over their heads to hide their faces glance around furtively as they walk into the room for a secret meeting to tell me why they have recently decided to become gun-wielding pirates – in search of million-dollar ransoms.<\/p>\n
“You are free to record – we accept,” one tells me as they sit down nervously for the interview that has taken months to set up in the small coastal town of Eyl.<\/p>\n
This behaviour is in start contrast to the bravado of the pirates who used to strut around this charming, ancient port nestled between arid mountains on Somalia\u2019s Indian Ocean coast.<\/p>\n
It has always been considered strategic, not only because of its location but also because it has a fresh-water source – and during the piracy boom of the early to mid-2000s the pirates made it their base.<\/p>\n
It became known as “Harunta Burcadda” – the Pirate Capital. From here, they targeted the container ships that transport goods around the world and even some oil tankers, forcing shipping companies to change their routes.<\/p>\n
The regional authorities held no sway – and the local police force was too scared to enter the town.<\/p>\n
Pirates kept their hijacked ships anchored offshore and businesses in the town and region profited from ransom payments. Between 2005 and 2012 the World Bank estimates pirate groups earned between $339m (\u00a3267m) and $413m.<\/p>\n
But the pirates suffered a reversal of fortunes when international navies began to patrol the seas off Somalia and these days the Puntland Maritime Police Force has a base in Eyl.<\/p>\n
Most people in the town welcomed this as the pirates brought with them eye-watering inflation, drugs, alcohol and a notoriety that the local Muslim elders shunned.<\/p>\n
But the longstanding resentment felt towards foreign shipping, in particular fishing trawlers, has never gone away in a town full of fishermen that depends on the sea for its survival. To this day they accuse these fishing boats of stealing their living – often violently.<\/p>\n
“Ships came and took all our equipment and belongings,” Farah, one of the fisherman-turned-pirates looking out defensively from behind his blue scarf, tells the BBC.<\/p>\n
Both his name and that of his friend Diiriye, who is wrapped in a white headscarf, have been changed – one of the conditions of our meeting.<\/p>\n
He and a few others had invested approximately $10,000 in a fishing venture for a boat, outboard engine and nets. But Farah says last year the crew of one foreign trawler came and stole the nets, along with its catch, and then shot the engine – destroying it.<\/p>\n
The pair give another example: some of their relatives had gone out to check their nets one morning and never came back – usually the fisherman go out at dawn and return before the midday heat hits.<\/p>\n
Three days later they were found, floating towards the beach.<\/p>\n
“There were bullets in their bodies,” Diiriye says.<\/p>\n
“They had no guns; they had gone to the sea with their nets to make their livelihood.”<\/p>\n\n