Somalia: urging the world to support a war-torn nation

By on May 24, 2010
Turkey is hosting a U.N sponsored three-day conference on Somalia to address conflict and the deepening humanitarian crisis in the war-torn nation. The piracy should also be one of the major issues in the conference of Istanbul. The UN Secretary-General, the Turkish Prime Minister, the Somali President, as well as the representatives of 55 countries are participating in this conference.

The situation in Somalia has become alarming – a country ravaged by civil war for more than two decades; more than 1,4 million Somalis were moved by the armed conflicts, other 575.000 took refuge with the nearby countries and almost 3 million persons on the 8 millions of Somalis depend on the international assistance.
“Without stability on the ground, there will be no offshore security “The acts of piracy continue to increase, to the point that they could constitute the international crime most frequently committed today. Mr. Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, had underlined in a statement.
The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) listed, in 2009, about 406 attacks of piracy, 746 taken hostage crew members, 8 killed sailors, and 59 other wounded persons. In total, 47 commercial ships or sailing boats were hijacked and the ransoms extorted from ship-owners represent 60 million dollars. Such sums are making of the piracy a juicy criminal activity, and one of the goals of the U.N. conference in Istanbul is to explore ways on how to combat piracy off the Somali coast, because poverty and political turmoil have been turning a growing number of Somalis to piracy.

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