Despite this apparent decline, it was considered that a threat of resurgence remained. In the United Nations Secretary-General’s report issued December 2021 on the situation off the Somalia coast, joint counter-piracy efforts had resulted in a steady decline in attacks and hijackings since 2011. In early 2017, a few incidents of piracy were reported as the navies of Asian and European nations began to more actively rescue hijacked ships, including the bulk carrier OS35. īy 2010, these patrols succeeded in steadily reducing the number of piracy incidents. Command of CTF 150 generally rotates between nations on a four monthly basis. The participating nations have included Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Spain, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and the United States. This area is a vital artery of world trade from the Far East to Europe and the US, with thousands of shipping movements per year including the transportation of over 27 million barrels of oil. Some believe that elements within Somalia collaborated with the pirates both to strengthen their political influence as well as for financial gain.Īfter the 1998 United States embassy bombings, the USS Cole bombing in 2000 in Aden, Yemen, followed by the 9/11 attacks in 2001 on the United States, the US Navy decided to step up its activities around the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea, by establishing in stages a multinational anti-piracy coalition known as Combined Task Force 150 (CTF 150), with an Area of Responsibility (AOR) including some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, spanning over two million square miles, covering the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman (but not inside the Persian Gulf, which is the responsibility of CTF 152). International organizations began to express concern over the new wave of piracy due to its high cost to global trade and the incentive to profiteer by insurance companies and others. Large numbers of unemployed Somali youth began to see it as a means of supporting their families. With the region badly affected by poverty and government corruption, there was little political motivation at the local level to deal with the crisis. These groups were then considered to be pirates, especially after they began hijacking non-fishing commercial vessels. This practice grew into a lucrative trade, where large ransom payments were demanded and often paid. These groups, using small boats such as skiffs and motorised boats, would sometimes hold vessels and crew for ransom. They in part responded by forming armed groups to deter what they perceived as invaders. This disorder meant there was no longer effective government policing of Somali waters by the Somali Navy, a weakness then exploited by often large foreign fishing boats, further threatening the livelihoods of local Somali fishing communities. Somalia was designated as a failed state, with extensive internal conflicts and major instability continuing until 2012, when the Federal Government of Somalia was established, which despite the intervention and support of foreign forces, could not fully establish its authority with threats from jihadist group al-Shabaab, so Somalia remained characterised as a fragile state. Foreign fishing has increased more than twenty-fold since 1981, and the most rapid increase occurred during the 1990s after the collapse of the Federal government under Siad Barre and the ensuing civil war. Many foreign vessels directly compete for fish, reducing fish populations and destroying marine habitat through bottom trawling. Some foreign vessels and their crew have been viewed by Somali artisanal fishers as a threat to their traditional livelihoods. The Somali domestic fishing sector is small and poorly developed, whereas foreign vessels have fished in Somali waters for at least seven decades. Somali waters have high fisheries production potential, but the sustainability of those fisheries is compromised by the presence of foreign fishing vessels, many of them fishing illegally. It was initially a threat to international fishing vessels, expanding to international shipping since the consolidation of states phase of the Somali Civil War around 2000. Piracy off the coast of Somalia occurs in the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel and Somali Sea, in Somali territorial waters and other surrounding places and has a long and troubled history with different perspectives from different communities.
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