U.N. food-aid ships headed to Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, are now escorted by foreign warships. The European Union, the U.N. and international maritime groups are trying to come up with a long-term solution to securing Somalia's waters. Private security companies, including Blackwater Worldwide, the U.S. firm with a controversial record in Iraq, are beginning to market their protection services.
So far the international response has not ended such attacks. Another ship was hijacked this week. The pirates say they won't be stopped.
"We are just a group of people with a common interest in making money," said a man who described himself as the chief of the pirates holding the Ukrainian vessel. "We have neither political nor religious ambition. We know it's illegal, but so is the foreign fishing and dumping of waste."
The man, who would not give his name, said that even a North Atlantic Treaty Organization presence in the area would fail to deter him. "We will consider NATO as the enemy and take actions against the citizens of any of its member states," he said.
Perhaps nowhere is piracy's grip on Somalia more apparent than in Hobyo, a village 300 miles north of Mogadishu with Italian-style architecture from colonial times. Hobyo once thrived from lobster and tuna fishing in the Indian Ocean.
Today, piracy has taken over the village. Women want to marry the pirates and small boys dream of growing up to become buccaneers. Of the town's 80 fishing boats, all but four have turned to hijacking, local fishermen said.
"I had 25 men working in my boats," said Sheik Nur Mohammed, who operates one of the four vessels still struggling to earn a living fishing. "They all left me and went to piracy."
He said he could hardly blame them. Exploitation and pollution caused by foreign fishing and dumping have devastated local waters. Foreigners have raided local fishermen's nets and used destructive techniques that have killed fish eggs and upset the environment, he said.
"Now we don't catch enough fish to survive," said Abdi Mudey, owner of another fishing boat. "We spend all day on the sea and return with barely enough to buy a dish of rice."
Pirates are now at the top of the town's social class, the only ones with money for Western-made cigarettes and fancy cellphones. Known by nicknames such as "Superman" or "Flying Squad," they spend their free time drunk or high on khat.
"Women here don't talk to you if you are not a pirate," said Suleiman Farey, 21, a recent high-school graduate. "I'm fed up with these guys."
But as he played in the water near a hijacked Greek chemical tanker, Hassan Ali, 11, said he couldn't wait to join a pirate gang so he could earn money to support his family.
His father was a casualty of fighting in Mogadishu; his mother sells tea.
"When I see the men sharing the money, I feel envy," the boy said. "I pray that piracy will not end before I become a man."
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edmund.sanders@latimes.com
