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Pirates threaten aid - WFP
10/07/2007 21:12 - (SA)
London - Two United Nations agencies called for urgent action to combat ship piracy off Somalia on Tuesday, which they said was endangering vital aid shipments and threatening international trade routes close by.
The UN International Maritime Organization (IMO), and the UN World Food Programme (WFP), said attacks were rising and growing more audacious. The agencies urged the Security Council, the African Union and neighbouring countries to help.
WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said crucial supply lines used to distribute aid to a million Somalis were at risk with "potentially disastrous" effects.
'Most difficult humanitarian operations'
"Close to 80% of WFP's assistance to Somalia is
shipped by sea but, because of piracy, we have seen the
availability of ships willing to carry food to the country cut
by half," Sheeran said at a joint press conference in London.
She said aid was being funnelled in by other means and had
not been severely hit yet but warned the situation could change
drastically if the attacks went on unchecked.
She said the aid effort in Somalia was now one of the "most difficult humanitarian operations in the world", because the attacks were targeting hard won suppliers.
'Preferred modus operandi'
The IMO, the world's top maritime body, said there had been 15 ship-hijackings this year. Two of the attacks involved
WFP-chartered ships and in one of them a security guard was
killed.
IMO Secretary General Efthimios Mitropoulos said the pirates
were locally based criminals linked to warlords or militia bent
on extorting money.
He said they were "trained fighters in military fatigues" sometimes armed to the teeth with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
Mitropoulos said their preferred modus operandi was to
launch attacks on speedboats from a "mother ship" in
territorial waters and up to 200 nautical miles offshore.
'Their own people will suffer'
He said the more audacious attacks, further out to sea, were
close to major international trade routes linking the Red Sea
with the Suez Canal and Gulf countries or sealanes down to the
Cape of Good Hope.
Some attacks had been committed under the noses of
multinational naval forces patrolling the Red Sea who were not
able to pursue the assailants into territorial waters because
they risked flouting international law, he said.
Mitropoulos renewed calls for the UN Security Council to
pressure the transitional government to allow war ships to enter
its waters.
"Then we may be in a better position to fight this common
scourge," he said.
"Without their consent their own people will suffer."
- Reuters
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