Boing Boing Staging

Russian Navy vs. Somali pirates

https://youtu.be/LxXWE6H55FA

Somali pirates attempt to take over a ship under protection of the Russian Navy. It doesn’t go well for the pirates.

This video is from one of my favorite YouTube channels, Humans at Sea.

Why would anyone in Somalia turn to piracy? In this 2014 article from The Telegraph a former kidnap victim named Colin Freeman explains:

“Young people get attracted into this business because there is very high unemployment here, almost 100 per cent, with no factories or industry,” Mohamed Kalombi, Puntland’s then interior minister, told me. “But now they see the chance to make millions of dollars through crime. With their money, the pirates are buying weapons and even bribing the justice institutions so that they will not be caught.”

Sure enough, down at Bossaso’s docks, local fishermen confirmed that piracy was a temptation. One told me that he earned just $5 a day if he was lucky enough to land a decent catch. By contrast, those who went out looking to catch ships, rather than tuna or swordfish, could earn tens of thousands of dollars from their share of any ransom deal.

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