Piracy in Somalia has been a threat to maritime international shipping since the late second phase of the Somali civil war. We have since seen almost two dozen nations including the N.A.T.O patrolling the long pirate infested Somali shores. There has since been no resolution to this ongoing issue and it has therefore escalated. By the end of this blog I hope to make you more aware of the Somali piracy situation and its main causes. I want to look at the aspects and causes of this never ending situation that has brought havoc and turmoil in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Somalia about six times the size of the U.S state Virginia is a lawless country with no central functioning government for the past 21 years. Since the ouster of Dictator Siad Barre the Somali civil war has worsened and the conflict has found its way from the mainland to the longest coastline in Africa.

What some people are not aware of is that a lot of these pirates are ex fishermen who can no longer carry out their fishing activities due to the fact that foreign vessels have been coming into the Somali shores and ‘stealing’ all of the marine resources thus leading to ex fishermen to become pirates so that they can protect what is ‘rightfully’ theirs.
Somali pirates have always claimed that Europeans along with Asian countries have been dumping illegal toxic waste into the Somali shores; this is partly because Somalia has no central government and therefore leads to an unprotected coastline. Evidence of this accusation has literally washed up on the Somali shores during the Boxing Day tsunami which occurred in the year 2004. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy for Somalia confirmed to Al Jazeera the world body has "reliable information" that European and Asian companies are dumping toxic waste, including nuclear waste, off the Somali coastline. He later added that
"I must stress however, that no government has endorsed this act, and that private companies and individuals acting alone are responsible,"

Rap artist K’NAAN shares his views on Somali piracy with al jazeera talk show host riz khan

There have been various solutions put forward to put an end to this never ending piracy situation. In fact statistics shows that piracy of the Somali cost has been increasing and increasing as the years goes on. Despite the naval presence of 2 dozen countries, pirates still continue to hijack ships and take them for ransom with the biggest ever ransom money being paid to Somali pirates standing at 7 million American dollars.Other measures of handling Somali piracy has been capturing them in the process of hijacking ships; the navies then hands them over to neighboring countries such as Kenya, Yemen and Djibouti to be tried in court before getting very harsh sentences. In my opinion these attempts to solve the problems have been unsuccessful and clearly they are not working! The United Nations along with super power countries need to realize that there is a specific cause of all these piracy related activities of the Somali coast and address them correctly in the right manner. I believe that if the problems in the mainland which is the long standing civil war is brought to a standstill and peace does end up taking effect then the piracy matter can be handled and easily solved.

There have been various consequences following the acts of Somali pirates including delays in food aid to millions of Somali citizens who are desperately in need. The world food organization has expressed its concerns over the piracy situation as it now needs a naval escort to deliver tons of food to those in need.
There are two sides to every story, and with the Somali pirates a lot of people do not know about their side of the story. I hope that you now have a somewhat better understanding of the in-depth situation that is going on in mainland Somalia and its waters. The truth is the media does not want you to hear the realities and the truth of what’s going on in Somali waters. All you hear about is pirates hijacking ships and holding people for hostages I do not condone these form of activities but it would be great to actually hear about the illegal fishing and toxic nuclear waste that is being dumped into the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden. Ask yourself if Somali fishermen are completely deprived of their marine resources by other nations then it really makes you wonder why they end up becoming pirates which is clearly due to poverty related issues.
Hope you now have a better in depth understanding of what is really going on in the Somali waters and shores.

i will leave you with another video of Somali born Canadian rapper K'NAAN being interviewed by David D, i want you to carefully listen to what K'NAAN is saying and ask yourself; do these issues ever end up getting mentioned in the mainstream media?