Garowe/The Telegraph: Somali pirates earn new cash by acting as escorts to the fishing boats they once hijacked
Somali pirates who raked in millions of dollars in ship hijackings have developed a lucrative new racket - acting as armed "escorts" to foreign trawlers that steal the country's fish.
In a striking case of poacher-turned-gamekeeper, the same armed gangs who once preyed on the trawlermen are now acting as their bodyguards, earning huge "protection fees" in return for letting them poach Somalia's rich fishing stocks.
Fisheries experts have warned that many of the fishing vessels are using huge illegal nets, causing potentially enormous damage to the country's marine ecosystem.
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WNU Editor: These fishing trawlers are decimating the fish stocks .... in a country that has a long history of starvation and famine. Talk about short term gain with no vision of the future. And this will only result in more piracy in the future .... Illegal fishing off Somalia 'risks return of piracy' (AFP).
1 comment:
WNU Editor,
So it's come full circle.
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1892376,00.html
""The first pirate gangs emerged in the '90s to protect against foreign trawlers," says Peter Lehr, lecturer in terrorism studies at Scotland's University of St. Andrews and editor of Violence at Sea: Piracy in the Age of Global Terrorism. The names of existing pirate fleets, such as the National Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia or Somali Marines, are testament to the pirates' initial motivations."
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