Andrew and Alex

Recently, there have been many pirate attacks by pirates of Somalia. On 26 Sep 2008, a Ukrainian ship was captured along with 33 battle tanks. The attack was off the waters of Somalia and the ship was heading to the Kenyan port of Mombasa. Warships have been sent to protect Russian ships and patrols are constantly looking for the pirates. German ships have been attacked as well, one in the Gulf of Aden. The pirates hijack the ships to ask for money afterwards, and they make a $2m average off the vessels.

The pirates are becoming a serious global problem and countries all over the world have been trying to stop it. For example, on January 29 2009, the French navy captured nine pirates and sent them to the authorities. Tokyo has prepared to fight the pirates as well. China has sent many navy ships “to crack down on Somali piracy” Liu Jianchao said.


Why do the pirates have to resort to such horrible behavior? My guess is poverty. Their country is not industrialized and powerful enough, so they leave and use inhumane methods of becoming rich. It’s a good life for these pirates right now, but eventually they will all be captured and sentenced accordingly.



This reminds me of what we’ve learnt from Geography class, of what poverty does.