Foreign navies have played a key role in curbing piracy off Somalia’s coast, writes the BBC’s Anne Soy.
On a beach in Hordeia on the northern coast of Somalia, I asked a former pirate what attracted him to piracy in the first place.
The man, who wanted to remain anonymous, told me he was originally a fisherman and that was his main source of income but things changed when an illegal trawler destroyed his net.
The former pirate’s story was not unusual. In the second half of the last decade what began as a defensive act against big trawlers, quickly morphed into a lucrative illegal business that raised global concern. As he and other fishermen lost their trade, they turned to piracy, hijacking ships and passengers for ransom.