Piracy in Somalia (A)

By: Sophus A Reinert and Alissa Davies

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Synopsis: "As dawn broke over the Indian Ocean on 17 February, 2011, a young Somali fisherman stood on a beach near his home in Garacad, a fishing village in the Mudug region of the North-Eastern semi-autonomous state of Puntland, itself part of the shifting patchwork of overlapping administrations, clans, and fiefdoms often referred to as Somalia, “the world’s most dangerous place.”1 A periodic drought had resulted in an ongoing famine that had cost hundreds of thousands of Somalis their lives, and his stomach grumbled. Gazing out to sea, he faced an agonizing choice. To his right, his small wooden fishing vessel, loaded with rudimentary nets and meager provisions, lay on the beach, ready to set sail. On his left, great commotion surrounded two rusty speedboats that were being loaded with food, petrol, AK-47s, and ammunition, equipment needed to hunt a different sort of prey. Two dozen young men were busily transporting supplies from Land Rovers parked on the nearby dunes, communicating by satellite phones with a larger “mother ship” moored within view off the coast. They were local pirates, and their beach buzzed with news of several large sailing ships heading towards the Gulf of Aden from the Indian Ocean."