Somali Pirates Out of Control

Over the past few years in Somalia conflicts in the southern region and capital city have occupied the interests of the Somali government and military leaving the north shores to be over run by pirates. These pirates are stealing the ships that pass through a international shipping lane used by every country in the world. Until recent times the Somali pirates would just threaten to shoot or blow up passing ships and their occupants would hand over peacefully but not any more.

With the more and more pirates that have joined up to take on these ships the occupants are less willing to give up their ships forcing the Somali pirates to start firing at them. Because of the amount of new Somali pirates they are in competition to get their ship. In Somalia there is organisations set up with unlimited resources of these locations of the oncoming ships. These organisations tell the pirates that this ship is yours that one is his and you can have that one and so on. These organisations are made up of ex military persons computer professionals and local fishermen.

Under these rankings you have the pirates themselves and they are given a mission from the organisation which they probably had to wait a long time for. With the growing number of pirates these strikes are becoming more frequent and less and less far between than they previously were. As they are assigned these ships and waited up to maybe a month for their chance to hi jack a ship they are not going to let them go because they are not willing to wait for the next opportunity to present itself.

The logic behind the rising pirate numbers is simple, they get away with it, with little or no risk. The pirates are the only ones armed in these attacks because it is illegal in most waters to carry arms, and seeing as though these ships have to travel through many nations waters they just don’t bother because they would have to change the legislation in most of these countries which could take years to pass them. Because of the fact that it will take years to pass these laws the pirates thrive in the neighbouring waters of Somalia. Yemen the country on the opposite side of the shipping lane refuse to police their waters because they are the ones selling the weapons to these pirate organisations so it wouldn’t be in their best interests to help the prevention of these pirates. They adapt the attitude that they are not bothering our ships so its not our problem and leaving the mouth of the shipping lane wide open and the most dangerous place in the world to bring a ship.