September 4,2008:
The drought, and disruptions caused by ongoing clan warfare, have led to
half the population of southern Somalia (south of Somaliland and Puntland)
being dependent on foreign food aid to survive. While most Somalis realize the
importance of this food supply, there are hundreds of armed groups in the
country, and dozens of them see no problem with preying on the food aid
operations (demanding bribes at roadblocks, stealing food trucks and plundering
foreign aid worker compounds, or kidnapping aid workers for ransom.)
Meanwhile,
the piracy situation off the northern coast has gotten more serious. The Gulf
of Aden is one the busiest shipping lanes in the world (with nearly ten percent
of all traffic). Each month, 1500-1600 ships pass the northern coast of
Somalia. So far this year, 3-4 of those ships have been seized by pirates each
month. That's one ship out of every 400-500. But with the pirates getting more
and more ransom money for each ship, the number of pirate groups operating in
the Gulf of Aden is increasing. It's believed that at least three fishing
trawlers (able to stay out for weeks at a time, and carry speed boats for
attacks) are acting as mother ships for the pirates. Most merchant ships are wary
of pirate operations, and put on extra lookouts, and often transit the 1,500 kilometer
long Gulf of Aden at high speed (even though this costs them thousands of
dollars in additional fuel). The pirates seek the slower moving, apparently
unwary, ships, and go after them before they can speed up enough to get away. For
the pirates, business is booming, and ransoms are going up. Pirates are now
demanding $2-3 million per ship, and are liable to get it for the much larger
tankers and bulk carriers they are now seizing.
The
international naval Task Force 150 has set up a patrolled corridor through the
Gulf of Aden, and advised slower ships to travel in convoys (which will get
extra attention from the warships.) Ships are being warned to transit the Gulf
of Aden carefully. It's the slow moving ships, without sufficient lookouts (the
speedboats are difficult to spot with the radar used by merchant ships) that
are most vulnerable. Meanwhile, the government in Puntland appears to be
intimidated, and/or bought off, by the warlords running the pirate operations
along their coast.
The Transitional
National Government (TNG), and its Ethiopian allies are assembling a force to
recapture the southern (near the Kenyan border and 500 kilometers south of
Mogadishu) port of Kismayo. The Islamic radicals have held the port since
August 23rd, and if allowed to keep control, would gain millions of dollars a
year in docking fees for ships, as well as the ability to import weapons from
Eritrea and Iran.
September 2,
2008: Foreign aid workers closed a
medical clinic in Mogadishu because of the increasing number of attacks on
their facility. Some Islamic radical groups are calling for all foreigners to
be expelled from the country.
Off the
north coast, a 50 foot French sailing vessel, apparently a recreational boat,
was seized by pirates. Two of the three people on board are French citizens, so
the French government is organizing a military rescue operation.
September 1,
2008: The number of Somalis fleeing to
Kenya is increasing, with over 200 a day crossing the border. These refugees
are sent to a camp that already holds over 210,000 Somalis. The Kenyans are
wary of allowing too many Somali refugees in, because the Somalis men tend to
get weapons and use the camps as a base for criminal activity in Kenya and
Somali. For that reason, Kenyan security forces keep a close watch on the
refugees.
August 29,
2008: A second Malaysian tanker (in the
last ten days) was seized off the north coast by pirates. The ship has a crew
of 41. There are seven ships, and at least 130 crew, being held by the Puntland pirates,
August 28,
2008: In Puntland, an Omani ship, held
by pirates for six months, was released. No word on why ransom negotiations
took so long (or what the ransom was.) Further south, the UN official (a
Somali) who headed the UN relief operation in Somalia, was freed after two
months in captivity. The UN wants to provide its staff with more bodyguards,
but foreign aid donors refuse to provide the needed funds. Currently, only
about $3 million a year is spent on security for UN staff in Somalia. The UN
believes that much more is needed. Foreign donors are increasingly sending
their aid money elsewhere, seeing Somalia as a waste of effort.