Somali Piracy 2.0 – Angry Fishermen on the High Seas

Two Somali fishermen wear large scarves over their heads to hide their faces as they walk into a room for a secret meeting to tell me why they recently decided to become gun-wielding pirates. is – looking for a million dollar ransom.

“You’re free to record – we accept,” one tells me as he nervously sits down for an interview that has taken months to set up in the small coastal town of Eyl.

This behavior is in stark contrast to the bravery of the pirates who roamed this charming, ancient port nestled among the barren mountains on Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast.

It has always been considered strategic, not only because of its location but also because it has a source of fresh water – and was a base for pirates in the early to mid-2000s.

It became known as “Harunta Barkada” – the pirate capital. From here, they target container ships that carry goods around the world and even some oil tankers, forcing shipping companies to change their routes.

The regional authorities had no influence – and the local police force was too scared to enter the town.

Pirates anchored their hijacked ships offshore and profited from ransom payments to businesses in the town and area. Between 2005 and 2012, the World Bank estimates that pirate groups earned between $339m (£267m) and $413m.

But the pirates suffered a reversal of fortune when the international navy began patrolling Somali waters and these days the Puntland Maritime Police Force has a base in El.

Most of the townspeople welcomed him as the pirates brought with them high prices, drugs, alcohol and a stigma that the local Muslim elders shunned.

But the long-held resentment of foreign shipping, especially fishing trawlers, never went away in the fisherman-filled town that depends on the sea for its survival. To this day they blame these fishing boats for stealing their lives – often violently.

“The ships came and took all our stuff and stuff,” Farah, a fisherman-turned-pirate, peeking out defensively from behind her blue scarf, tells the BBC.

Both his name and that of his friend Dirye, who is wrapped in a white scarf, have been changed – one of the conditions of our meeting.

He and a few others invested about $10,000 in the fishing venture for a boat, outboard engine and nets. But Farah says that last year a foreign trawler crew came and stole the net with its catch and then shot down the engine and destroyed it.

The couple cites another example: Some of their relatives went to check their nets one morning and never returned – usually fishermen go out at dawn and return before the heat of the afternoon.

Three days later he was found floating on the beach.

“He had bullets in his body,” Deri says.

“They had no guns; they went to sea with their nets to earn their living.”

Farah continues: “We work and live by the sea. The sea is our business.

“When someone threatens you and robs you, you have to fight. They fought. If they didn’t take our property, we wouldn’t have gone into piracy.”

These men – who are in their 30s – are not alone in deciding to turn to piracy over the past year.

According to Operation Atlanta, an EU naval force that patrols nearby, there were 26 pirate attacks between 2013 and 2019 – and then none from 2020 to 2022. But they started again in 2023, with six attacks and 22 that year. Figures up to December 5 show.

Most of these skirmishes don’t end in a successful hijacking – but when it does, it pays off. The pirates say they received it $5 million ransom To release the hijacked Bangladesh-flagged MV Abdullah in March 2024. The owner of the ship has not confirmed this, but said he was released after negotiations.

Sources in gave The semi-autonomous Puntland state, where Eyl is located, told the BBC they estimate there are about 10 gangs operating in the area, each with 12 members.

They go to sea for 15 to 30 days at a time, packing their small speedboats with AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), food and fuel.

Farah and Deri say their goal is to hijack a medium-sized ship deep in the Indian Ocean and then escort it to their mother ship, using its GPS tracking system to target larger vessels. .

“You can use small speedboats to attack ships,” says Farah.

Their bazooka rocket launcher is also an integral part of their strategy.

“We use RPGs to stop the ship. When the ship doesn’t stop, we shoot at it. We don’t hit. The goal is to get something, not kill. [The aim is] To scare them,” Deri says.

Not all of these weapons come cheap – so these groups are primarily funded by interested investors. The disgruntled fishermen feel inferior and a syndicate is formed, often involving various businessmen from the towns of Garvey and Bosaso.

One might fund boats, another weapon and the third like fuel. These entrepreneurs sometimes invest in several groups in the hope that when one of their ships is captured, it will hit the jackpot so that they can collect the ransom money.

And getting a gun is easy in Somalia – even in Eyl you can pick up an AK-47 for around $1,200, a legacy of its two decades of civil war and years of lawlessness.

Farah and Deri say they were not involved in the rise of piracy and did not seek advice from retired pirates, some of whom started out as disgruntled fishermen.

Most of these old pirates have left the area – often gone abroad or repented.

In one famous case, a former pirate – Abdul Rahman Bekel gave away his wealth. In 2020, he donated the houses and hotels he bought in Garvey to Muslim charities and is now an itinerant preacher who travels from town to town in Puntland urging people to Live a simple and morally upright life.

Adadu, a town in central Somalia once invested by pirates, earned the nickname “Blue City” because their newly built mansions often had blue iron-clad roofs.

A good deal of these homes are now vacant — or available for rent for less than $100 a month.

In Eyl, the town’s elders say the main legacy of piracy is the spread of alcohol, often smuggled from Ethiopia, and drugs such as opioids – with concerns that some young people who are already chewing the stimulant leaf khat , which is a popular afternoon pastime to become addicted.

People who gather outside tea shops in the afternoon to play dominoes and discuss the news say they don’t approve of piracy – although they understand hostility to foreign ships.

The recent incident of the three fishermen who were shot dead is clear to many.

Ali Mursal Muse, who has been fishing for eel and shark for nearly 40 years to support his wife and 12 children, believes he may have been mistaken for a pirate – as he was years ago. were

“We left here with another fishing boat and went out to sea. That’s when pirates tried to hijack a ship. A plane came. My boat came ashore. Another fishing boat. Attacked,” he recalls.

Forty-year-old widow Hawa Muhammad Zuberi believes that the same fate happened to her husband when he went missing 14 years ago.

It was a time when piracy was at its height and she had just given birth to a son, whom they wanted to circumcise.

“My husband was thinking that if he caught a shark, we could pay to have the baby circumcised,” she tells the BBC, clearly distraught over her death. She says she is struggling to pay school fees for her children by selling samosas.

Mr Muse says the main problem for him these days is the unethical behavior of fishing fleets from countries such as Iran and Yemen, which often steal his goods.

They believe they have been issued fake Somali fishing licenses by powerful local backers who also provide them with gunmen for protection. He accused them of looting their catches and encroaching on fishing grounds.

“They have a zone where they work and they also come to the beach. When we go and ask for our belongings back, they shoot at us. Recently, they injured some people. “They shot a boy and injured his hand and leg.”

The fisherman says he has complained to the local authorities several times but no action has been taken.

Puntland’s Information Minister Caydid Dirir acknowledged the presence of some illegal vessels and said some foreign vessels could be licensed and “misused”.

“Illegal fishing exists in all seas, and piracy can happen anywhere. There is gradual progress,” he tells the BBC.

Illegal fishing has been a controversial issue in Somalia for many years.

According to the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, many fishing vessels operate without a license or authority to do so with a license issued by the bodies.

It cites evidence, including satellite navigation data, to show that many ships originate from China, Iran, Yemen and Southeast Asia. According to a report by the US Embassy in Mogadishu, Somalia loses $300 million annually.

Manuel Alvargonzalez Mendez, the rear admiral of Operation Atlanta, says his forces only target pirate ships and now have to protect the ships as well. Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

But he believes the area is safer and Somalis can now “cast their fishing nets without fear” – like the Puntland Maritime Police Force, which works alongside the EU’s naval mission. .

Its commander, Farhan Owel Hashi, is confident it will not return to the “bad old days” of piracy.

He believes the long-term answer is “job creation.”

“Young people should always have jobs,” he tells the BBC. “If that person is busy with something, they won’t think of going out to sea and hijacking ships.”

Farah and Deri make the same argument – they say that since fishing no longer pays, hijacking a ship for ransom is the only way they can support their children.

They know piracy is wrong – and Dery admits he’s too afraid to tell his mother.

“If she had known, she would have been very disappointed. In fact, she would have informed the authorities.”