Five years ago, the isolated outpost of Eyl was Somalia’s most
notorious pirate lair. Perched above the crashing waves of the Indian
Ocean, the ramshackle town played host to wheeling and dealing pirate
kingpins who would roar through the rutted streets in tinted 4x4s as
captured ships languished in the shallow waters.
Eyl had become a byword for everything that was wrong with Somalia: a place of anarchy where a civil war and two decades of fighting had destroyed even the most basic institutions of a functioning state, a place where the gun and ransom dollars ruled. The lawless and deadly mayhem was captured in the 2012 film A Hijacking in which a Danish freight vessel was captured by pirates and its captain murdered.
Pirate-hunting western warships belatedly dispatched to the region as part of Nato, US and European Union forces to pacify the pirates and end the hijacking and hostage-taking of western ships and their crews, seem to have won the battle.
Five years later, Eyl is a very different place. The pirates have gone, leaving the outpost to its fate. As with pretty much everywhere else in Somalia, there is an air of neglect with its historic buildings in disrepair. A tiny fort on the beach serves as a reminder that Eyl was once famous for something else – Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, the revered 19th-century jihadi and national poet, better known to British forces fighting him in the early 20th century as the Mad Mullah.
Unfortunately for the local population, as the pirates have departed, other aggressors have returned. While the world has shifted its attention elsewhere, marauding flotillas from countries such as Yemen, Iran and South Korea – in flagrant breach of international maritime law – have begun to plunder Somalia’s rich fishing grounds, plunging the local fishermen who hold up the town’s economy into financial ruin.
Overfishing, which devastated the livelihoods of coastal communities a decade ago, is regarded as the principal reason for the initial outbreak of piracy. The waters off Somalia’s 1,880-mile coastline are among the richest fishing grounds in the world, teeming with shark, tuna, sardines, snapper and lobster. The illegal fishermen, their rusty tubs flying flags of convenience and protected by armed Somali brigands from further up the coast, chase off local fishermen who come too close – ramming their boats, shooting at them or sabotaging their gear. It’s a deadly fight that has raged largely unseen and unreported.
Among fishermen on Eyl’s sweeping beach, the mood towards the foreign fishing fleets is bitter. Musa Mahamoud, a lithe and fit-looking 55-year-old, points to the latest provocation – his fishing nets, slashed at sea.
Many Somalis want Nato and EU frigates to do more to tackle the illegal fishermen in the absence of any Somali capability to do so. While the Gulf-funded Puntland Maritime Police Force, based in Bosaso, has notched up some successes against unlicensed boats in the Red Sea, an Eyl detachment is still awaiting speedboats.
“Nato came because of the piracy, but the cause of piracy is the illegal fishing,” says Wa’is, the Eyl official. “If Nato can chase away the pirates, then why not the illegal fishermen?”
It is a view echoed by Abdullahi Jama Saleh, Puntland’s counter-piracy minister, who accuses the west of having “a mandate to catch the little thief, but not the big one”.
Eyl had become a byword for everything that was wrong with Somalia: a place of anarchy where a civil war and two decades of fighting had destroyed even the most basic institutions of a functioning state, a place where the gun and ransom dollars ruled. The lawless and deadly mayhem was captured in the 2012 film A Hijacking in which a Danish freight vessel was captured by pirates and its captain murdered.
Pirate-hunting western warships belatedly dispatched to the region as part of Nato, US and European Union forces to pacify the pirates and end the hijacking and hostage-taking of western ships and their crews, seem to have won the battle.
Five years later, Eyl is a very different place. The pirates have gone, leaving the outpost to its fate. As with pretty much everywhere else in Somalia, there is an air of neglect with its historic buildings in disrepair. A tiny fort on the beach serves as a reminder that Eyl was once famous for something else – Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, the revered 19th-century jihadi and national poet, better known to British forces fighting him in the early 20th century as the Mad Mullah.
Unfortunately for the local population, as the pirates have departed, other aggressors have returned. While the world has shifted its attention elsewhere, marauding flotillas from countries such as Yemen, Iran and South Korea – in flagrant breach of international maritime law – have begun to plunder Somalia’s rich fishing grounds, plunging the local fishermen who hold up the town’s economy into financial ruin.
Overfishing, which devastated the livelihoods of coastal communities a decade ago, is regarded as the principal reason for the initial outbreak of piracy. The waters off Somalia’s 1,880-mile coastline are among the richest fishing grounds in the world, teeming with shark, tuna, sardines, snapper and lobster. The illegal fishermen, their rusty tubs flying flags of convenience and protected by armed Somali brigands from further up the coast, chase off local fishermen who come too close – ramming their boats, shooting at them or sabotaging their gear. It’s a deadly fight that has raged largely unseen and unreported.
Among fishermen on Eyl’s sweeping beach, the mood towards the foreign fishing fleets is bitter. Musa Mahamoud, a lithe and fit-looking 55-year-old, points to the latest provocation – his fishing nets, slashed at sea.
Many Somalis want Nato and EU frigates to do more to tackle the illegal fishermen in the absence of any Somali capability to do so. While the Gulf-funded Puntland Maritime Police Force, based in Bosaso, has notched up some successes against unlicensed boats in the Red Sea, an Eyl detachment is still awaiting speedboats.
“Nato came because of the piracy, but the cause of piracy is the illegal fishing,” says Wa’is, the Eyl official. “If Nato can chase away the pirates, then why not the illegal fishermen?”
It is a view echoed by Abdullahi Jama Saleh, Puntland’s counter-piracy minister, who accuses the west of having “a mandate to catch the little thief, but not the big one”.
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