The ebb and flow of Somali pirates

It was the 1990s when Somalia dove, head first, into national security chaos. 

'Timeline: Somalia, 1991-2008' published by The Atlantic establishes the ousting of the dictator and President Siad Barre by rival clan militias in 1991 as the primary cause for the subsequent intense clan-based warfare. This would continue to rule the land for years to come. 

It would take about a year — and an estimated 350,000 Somali deaths due to starvation, disease and civil war — for the UN Security Council to approve a military mission (led by the US) to help the country by protecting food shipments from warlords. 

But it was in the 1993 "Battle of Mogadishu," when the Black Hawk Down (you might remember the 2001 Hollywood movie by the same name) incident occurred, which saw 18 American soldiers killed in Somalia. In the following year, the US officially ended its mission in Somalia. 

One can argue that international resolve to intervene in Somalia waned as a result. Foreign forces gradually withdrew. And Somalia was left to her own devices. 

More suffering ensued due to internal fighting, disease outbreaks, Ethiopian forces invading to suppress rebel groups, interim governments in Kenya, the US reactivating missions under the suspicion of Al-Qaeda presence in the early 2000s and so much more. 

Somalia failed to break free from chaos, poverty and destruction. 

'Coast guards' waving black flags 

While the country suffered from its political and security crises, another development was brewing off Somalia's coast: illegal fishing by foreign vessels and the dumping of toxic waste. Courtesy of the collapse of the central government, the exploitation of Somali waters — which depleted fish stocks, damaged marine ecosystems and posed serious health risks to coastal communities — by foreign entities became a deadly reality.  

Somalia's fishermen refused to sit idle, according to a 2008 New York Times story. Some joined militiamen, some armed themselves to patrol the waters. And some of these groups, eventually, turned to piracy. 

In another 2008 story, the New York Times spoke to Sugule Ali, a pirate spokesperson acting on behalf of the group who, at the time, had just hijacked the Ukrainian freighter MV Faina. Loaded with tanks, artillery, grenade launchers and ammunition, it was one of the most high-profile or "successful" hijacking campaigns by Somali pirates. The ship was held for over four months before being released after a ransom payment of around $3.2 million.

Sugule spoke in a 45-minute telephone interview "on everything from what the pirates wanted ("just money") to why they were doing this ("to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters") to what they had to eat on board (rice, meat, bread, spaghetti, "you know, normal human-being food")."

Sugule also said, "In the eyes of the world, the pirates have been misunderstood. We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard." 

By the late 2000s and early 2010s, Somalian pirates rose to infamy and posed a considerable threat to international maritime trade. In 2008, the UN Security Council authorised foreign member states to conduct maritime security operations on Somalia's territorial waters to combat the threat of Somali pirates, according to The Atlantic. 

Where did the money go?

In 1998, the Puntland region of Somalia declared autonomy after the rest of the country collapsed into anarchy, but did not seek independence. And soon, especially due to its long coastline along the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, which provided ideal bases for pirate operations, it came to be known as the pirates' capital from 2005-2012. 

In 2009, Al Jazeera's correspondent Mohammed Adow gained exclusive access to Puntland's pirates. He met with a well-known pirate, Abdirashid Ahmed — nicknamed Juqraafi (geography). At the time he had just collected a ransom of $1.3 million after the capture of the Greek ship MV Saldanha.

He wrote, "Successful ventures like Juqraafi's have turned piracy in Somalia into a self-financing local industry. Pirate cells operate in well-organised groups, drawing in members of extended family networks. 

"Those who have been paid a ransom sponsor the other pirates. For example, if a group is holding a ship and they're paid a ransom and then another ship is captured, the first group will fund the second one till they too get ransom payment," Juqraafi told Adow. 

Adow reported, "The piracy industry is controlled by criminal gangs who recruit local youths and take the lion's share of the profits. They are also well-armed with weapons ranging from Kalashnikovs to rocket launchers."

Essentially, select individuals and groups became very rich while others were plunged further into poverty. 

According to a recent BBC report, "between 2005 and 2012, pirates off the Horn of Africa raked in between $339 million and $413 million by holding crew members hostage and demanding ransom payments."

A new golden age of piracy?

It may sound as though Somali pirates are the only ones in the international waters posing a threat. But there are other contemporary pirates in the seas such as Nigeria's Niger Delta pirates, Sulu and Celebes Seas pirates (particularly in the maritime border areas between the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia), Gulf of Guinea pirates (off the coast of West Africa) and Malacca Strait pirates (major waterway between Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore). 

But none quite came close to Somali pirates' notoriety in modern-day piracy. 

It took a concerted effort through international collaborations to subdue Somali piracy's threat. Lloyd's List, a news journal specialising in shipping news since 1734, reported, "The turning point came in 2012, when EU Navfor expanded its remit, reducing cases of piracy to 75 from 237 the previous year."

Formally European Union Naval Force (EU Navfor) Somalia is an ongoing counter-piracy military operation conducted at sea off the Horn of Africa and in the Western Indian Ocean. Now named EU Navfor Atalanta, it was the first EU naval operation supported by the UN. The Indian Navy and other collaborative military operations also played a part. 

By 2018, after a crackdown by international navies stopped a rash of seizures in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, these pirates became almost entirely dormant.

In 2022, Lloyd's List reported, "With no attacks on merchant vessels in the Indian Ocean for the last four years, six leading industry organisations led by the International Chamber of Shipping and BIMCO have decreed that as of the start of 1 January [2023], the region will no longer be designated a high-risk area." 

But then things took a turn. Reuters reported the hijacking of the Maltese-flagged MV Ruen in December 2023 was the first successful takeover of a vessel involving Somali pirates since 2018. 

At least 17 incidents of hijacking, attempted hijacking and suspicious approaches have been recorded by the Indian Navy since 1 December [2023], Indian officials previously said. EU Navfor Atalanta has been on high alert.

On 12 March, MV Abdullah — a Bangladesh-flag bearing vessel was hijacked by Somali pirates and veered off to Somalia's coastlines. This brings back the grim memory of Bangladesh's MV Moni Jahan's hijacking by Somali pirates in 2010. 

"Attacks on ships off Somalia appear to be opportunistic, with hijackers likely exploiting a security gap," Troels Burchall Henningsen, associate professor at the Royal Danish Defence College, recently told the BBC.

"International forces began patrolling these waters when piracy surged between 2005 and 2012, but the focus recently moved up into the Red Sea, where Yemen's Houthi rebel group have been attacking ships," he said.

According to a CNBC report, global piracy costs the world economy tens of billions of dollars annually. Data from 2023 shows that by many key measures, piracy is on the rise in key global shipping lanes.  

This begs the question, is the world set to return to the Somali pirates' golden era? Time will tell.