Monday 4 April 2011

NewsSomalia's top pirate catchers need boats

BULA HAR, Somalia (AP) — Three boat engines lie disemboweled on the floor, and radios donated by Britain sit unused in boxes. Despite the shortcomings, this coast guard of mismatched uniforms and ramshackle boats is the most effective force in Somalia fighting pirates.
The international community is spending millions of dollars a day maintaining a fleet of warships to protect key shipping lanes off East Africa to fight back against increasingly brutal pirate attacks.
Less well known is the part played by the Somaliland coast guard, working on its annual government-paid budget of $200,000.
"We go on patrol every day if the wind is not too strong. We only have one engine and it is not very reliable," said Capt. Mubarak Mohamed, the leader of the eight coast guard forces stationed in the village of Bula Har, which lies on Somali's northern coast in the Somaliland region about 100 miles (165 kilometers) southeast of the nation-state of Djibouti.
Their lone working boat is kept afloat by cannibalizing the other three ancient engines for parts.
The 600-strong coast guard in Somaliland, a breakaway republic in northern Somalia, has captured 84 pirates since 2007, arrested "countless" illegal fishermen and detained many smugglers, including a man with 37 pistols hidden on his boat last month, said the force's leader, Adm. Ahmed Aw Osman.
Osman's impeccably white uniform contrasts strongly with the battered, ancient boats his men enthusiastically show off. The coast guard relies mostly on local tip-offs to conduct raids, knowledge unavailable to the hulking warships that prowl the Gulf of Aden.Continued

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