How Somali Piracy came to be

Before the intervention of the African Union forces in Somalia, piracy in the war torn country was a thriving business. It is estimated that from 2011 to 2012 up to $6.9 billion was lost to piracy. Over 199 hostages and 14 ships were held off the Somali coast making the whole issue an international crisis. 

Many of the leaders of the Somali and even the pirates themselves have attributed the situation to a totally different cause. The theft of fish from the Somali coast and the dumping of toxic waste into the area has been blamed for the increased vice over time. 

Most Somali believe that the term pirate should be given to those who come to fish from their territorial waters or dump waste off their coastline. Considering the losses of life and property on the coast of the Gulf of Africa nation one would feel that the claims don’t weigh much. However, every story has two sides.

Piracy has been lucrative for anyone who is ready to get involved. The goods could be smuggled through porous borders into neighboring East African nations where they would fetch a tidy sum. The money would then be invested in businesses like real estate. In 2011 and early 2012 when the business was thriving; property in the real estate rose in Nairobi the Kenyan capital as a result.

To increase their earnings, pirates started kidnapping journalists, tourists and children in Somalia and Kenya for ransom. The money was also used to fund the Al Shabaab in carrying out terrorist attacks in the country and East Africa and that necessitated military action to quell the bloodletting the trade fueled.

The AU forces with help from the international community have helped return sanity to Somalia and the country is now recovering from the effects of a war which is as old as 1991.

Read more about piracy in Somalia here.