Cranes on Mogadishu’s skyline prove there is an alternative to piracy
CONSTRUCTION cranes currently dot the skyline of downtown Mogadishu.
The Somali capital is undergoing something of a building boom, as property developers seize the chance to turn a quick buck by hastily throwing up office complexes and apartment blocks.
Just three months ago, the city’s port opened a new container terminal that will boost annual throughput capacity from 150,000 teu to 250,000 teu.
The World Bank rates it as the most efficient gateway in East Africa, outperforming regional rivals such Djibouti and Mombasa.
Somalia’s GDP grew by 4% last year, which is testimony to the regenerative capacity of the invisible hand.
The economy could almost have stepped straight out of a libertarian textbook, ranking among the most deregulated anywhere on the planet. Eat your heart out, Xavier Millei.
For a country that was not too long ago universally written off as a perpetual basket case, these are obvious signs of better days ahead.
The flipside is a string of major problems, which include climate change-induced drought and flooding, widespread food insecurity and large chunks of territory under the control of Islamist militias.
One region, Puntland, considers itself autonomous. Another, Somaliland, has gone further and unilaterally declared independence.
So the last thing the administration of Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre needs right now is the return of piracy. That is possible; it is not inevitable.
This month to date has witnessed an attack attempt to board Stolt-Nielsen tanker Stolt Sagaland(IMO: 9352200) and the boarding of Latsco Marine Management’s Hellas Aphrodite(IMO: 9722766).
Shipping professionals of middling years and older will remember just how bad things got at one stage in the past, with 237 attacks in 2011 alone.
For a time, it looked as if the scourge had very largely gone away. There were no successful captures of merchant vessels whatsoever between 2018 and late 2023, leading the International Maritime Bureau to declare that the Indian Ocean was no longer a piracy hotspot.
Some sources have attributed the renewed outbreak to the encouragement proffered by the local jihadists grouped as al-Shabaab and their Houthi allies in Yemen.
If eminent area specialists cite that prospect, it would be foolish to gainsay them. But the motivation for Somali pirates has traditionally been criminal rather than ideological.
Hand-wringing commentators have been known to paint their actions as a response to overfishing by foreign factory trawlers in Somali waters, devastating coastal livelihoods.
That suggestion here is that hijacking ships and holding thousands of seafarers hostage, resulting in the deaths of not a few, is not quite justified but perhaps a little bit understandable.
We do not share this analysis. Somali piracy has never been a desperate anguished cry for help for impoverished simple fisherfolk.
The various Mr Bigs behind this malign trade were enriched by tens of millions of dollars, enabling them to live the kind of lifestyle associated with that level of income.
Afweyne — the chosen nom de guerre of one of the most high-profile ringleaders — once featured regularly in what were still the printed pages of Lloyd’s List as a daily newspaper. Indeed, he was even once namechecked in our annual survey of the Top 100 influential people in the industry.
Convicted of piracy and torture, Afweyne served 12 years in a Belgian prison and was released earlier this year. Almost immediately, he went back home and was elected a member of parliament.
He has since resigned, with his family citing unspecified personal reasons. But his political standing suggests that voters accord him the status more of a hero than bad guy.
Fortunately, there are no compelling reasons to fear sudden descent back to the bad old days.
Importantly, shipping has learned from bitter experience. Nowadays crews are trained in how to handle suspicious approaches, in line with what is effectively the seventh iteration of the International Chamber of Shipping’s Best Management Practices guidelines.
Additional muscle is available. Armed guards on vessels are a known deterrent to pirates and are available at prices so low that no shipowner can realistically justify skimping on the outlay.
Boots-on-the-ground military intervention is not a viable policy option, as movie buffs who have seen Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down will be aware.
But the international community has deployed warships to regional counter-piracy efforts since 2008. The warships haven’t worked miracles but have achieved much by way of mitigation.
The other way forward is to encourage political and economic stability ashore. That is already happening to some extent but needs to happen more.
Trump has ordered the shutdown of the US Agency for International Development and Starmer is planning to reduce UK aid spending to the lowest levels this century.
One of the reasons such decisions are not a good idea — apart from the obvious moral imperative to save human lives on a huge scale — is that aid allows donor countries to keep governments in places like the Horn of Africa on the right track.
Those cranes on the Mogadishu skyline point to an alternative future for Somalis, with ample work on decent wages and a chance to get rich without having to die trying. It is in the West’s own interests to make sure hope wins big.
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