Shoaib Ahmed , CNN-IBN
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Freed sailor of RAK Afrikana Abhinav Kotwal said, "They are very well organised. They have separate teams to handle different tasks, some guard ships, some go for hijackings. They are being controlled by someone big sitting out of Somalia."
Haradhere, Eyl and Hobyo towns in Somalia are the main hubs, out of which Eyl and Hobyo are the main home ports of pirates where hijacked ships and crew-members are kept and Haradhere is a town totally controlled by the pirates and they even run a big piracy funding set-up here.
Mogadishu is the port-of-call for pirates' mother-ships and the destination location for ransom payments.
At least 20 different gangs of pirates operate and they refuel their boats on the Yemen coast and even store up weapons and ammunition here.
From here they are armed with AK-47s and Rocket-propelled grenades. For communication they use GPS sets and satellite phones.
They are addicted to a local drug 'Meera Khat' and survive mostly on milk. And if a pirate dies on a mission his family is compensated by the sponsors of the gang.
DCP Port Zone, Mumbai Quaiser Khalid said, "The fact that they can spend several days on the high seas and the weapons seized from them show how well-trained they are, chasing and hijacking ship on the high seas is not an easy task."
Even though naval warships of at least 30 countries are deployed in the Gulf of Aden, pirates on-board hijacked ships are leaving Somalis posing as fishermen and on reaching the high seas they use their ships as launchpads to hijack more ships. So if ships coming out of Somalia are not monitored, piracy will only flourish in this region.
Source: IBN