Somali piracy 2.0 – the angry fishermen on the high seas

Two Somali fishermen wearing big scarves over their heads to hide their faces glance around furtively as they walk into the room for a secret meeting to tell me why they have recently decided to become gun-wielding pirates – in search of million-dollar ransoms.

“You are free to record – we accept,” one tells me as they sit down nervously for the interview that has taken months to set up in the small coastal town of Eyl.

This behaviour is in start contrast to the bravado of the pirates who used to strut around this charming, ancient port nestled between arid mountains on Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast.

It has always been considered strategic, not only because of its location but also because it has a fresh-water source – and during the piracy boom of the early to mid-2000s the pirates made it their base.

It became known as “Harunta Burcadda” – the Pirate Capital. From here, they targeted the container ships that transport goods around the world and even some oil tankers, forcing shipping companies to change their routes.

The regional authorities held no sway – and the local police force was too scared to enter the town.

Pirates kept their hijacked ships anchored offshore and businesses in the town and region profited from ransom payments. Between 2005 and 2012 the World Bank estimates pirate groups earned between $339m (£267m) and $413m.

But the pirates suffered a reversal of fortunes when international navies began to patrol the seas off Somalia and these days the Puntland Maritime Police Force has a base in Eyl.

Most people in the town welcomed this as the pirates brought with them eye-watering inflation, drugs, alcohol and a notoriety that the local Muslim elders shunned.

But the longstanding resentment felt towards foreign shipping, in particular fishing trawlers, has never gone away in a town full of fishermen that depends on the sea for its survival. To this day they accuse these fishing boats of stealing their living – often violently.

“Ships came and took all our equipment and belongings,” Farah, one of the fisherman-turned-pirates looking out defensively from behind his blue scarf, tells the BBC.

Both his name and that of his friend Diiriye, who is wrapped in a white headscarf, have been changed – one of the conditions of our meeting.

He and a few others had invested approximately $10,000 in a fishing venture for a boat, outboard engine and nets. But Farah says last year the crew of one foreign trawler came and stole the nets, along with its catch, and then shot the engine – destroying it.

The pair give another example: some of their relatives had gone out to check their nets one morning and never came back – usually the fisherman go out at dawn and return before the midday heat hits.

Three days later they were found, floating towards the beach.

“There were bullets in their bodies,” Diiriye says.

“They had no guns; they had gone to the sea with their nets to make their livelihood.”