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Nations vow to cooperate on Somali piracy as ships seized

Other News Materials 11 December 2008 22:09 (UTC +04:00)

Delegates at an international conference aimed at addressing piracy off the coast of Somalia on Thursday vowed to cooperate to end the menace on the high seas as news emerged another two ships had been seized, dpa reported.

Over 140 delegates from 45 countries - including ambassadors, ministers and technical experts - gathered in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Wednesday and Thursday in an attempt to find a solution to the growing problem.

"The respective countries resolved to cooperate with each other and with regional and international organizations ... to combat piracy at sea and address the root causes on land," a joint statement from the delegates issued at the end of meeting Thursday evening said.

The delegates also agreed that peace in conflict-stricken Somalia, along with a functioning government, is necessary to end piracy.

The increase in piracy this year has coincided with a degeneration of the security situation in Somalia, where the Transitional Federal Government is crumbling under a fierce Islamist insurgency.

UN Special Representative for Somalia Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, speaking at the start of the conference, said that the world's long- term neglect of Somalia had created the current boom in piracy in the Gulf of Aden.

Ould-Abdallah said 32 vessels had been attacked in the last two months alone, with 12 being successfully seized.

Even as he spoke, news emerged that Somali pirates had hijacked two Yemeni fishing boats on Wednesday near the port of Aden, although seven crew members managed to escape on a smaller boat.

Around 17 ships and 300 crew members are now in the hands of pirates, including a Saudi supertanker carrying crude oil worth 100 million dollars and a Ukrainian ship carrying a cargo of 33 tanks and other military equipment.

The surge in piracy has prompted increased patrols along the Somali coast by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Russia, India and France.

The EU on Tuesday also formally launched operation "Atalanta," a year-long mission relying on up to six warships and two or three maritime patrol aircraft at any one time

However, Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula, opening Thursday's ministerial-level meeting on behalf of President Mwai Kibaki, said that until the world addressed the insecurity in Somalia no progress would be made.

"If the major powers paid one-tenth of their responsibility to Somalia, compared to the 100 per cent paid to Iraq, Afghanistan or the former Yugoslavia ... we wouldn't be here today," he read from a statement attributed to Kibaki.

Piracy in Somali has its roots in the early 1990s, when illegal fishing trawlers and ships dumping toxic waste took advantage of the collapse of the regime of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 to target Somali waters.

Fishermen began seizing the foreign ships, saying they were defending their coastline. Now piracy in Somalia has morphed into a multimillion-dollar industry, with gunmen commanding huge ransoms for the ships they seize.

Ould-Abdallah said pirates may have made over 120 million dollars from ransoms this year alone.

Somalia has been embroiled in chaos ever since Barre's ouster, but the crisis has deepened since Ethiopian forces helped kick out a hardline Islamist regime in the last half of 2006, sparking the insurgency.

At least 10,000 civilians have died and over a million have fled since early 2007. The insurgents have regrouped and made huge gains since the Ethiopian initiative and are now perched on the edge of the Somali capital Mogadishu.

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, in a statement read out at the start of the conference, called for UN peacekeepers to be deployed to help an undermanned and overwhelmed African Union force.

"Somalia has been abandoned by the whole world," the statement said. "It is high time (the world) examines its conscience and comes to rescue Somalia now."

However, the delegates at the conference threatened sanctions against Somali leaders who obstruct stability in their own country.

"Somali leaders who impede the stabilization of their country creating conditions to breed and escalate piracy will be individually and collectively placed under sanctions by the African Union," the delegates' statement read.

Somalia's government has recently been seriously hampered by political infighting.

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