Success in Somalia is far from Complete

After writing about Yemen on Sunday, today I go across the Gulf of Aden to Somalia. Somalia has been torn apart by a generation of violence and bloodshed. The violence has contributed to the harshness of the famine currently affecting much of Somalia. Tomorrow an international conference is held in London to discuss what should be done to deal with Somalia. Just like Yemen, Somalia is of strategic importance, it lies on a major trade route between Europe and the Far East as well as Australasia and the Indian Ocean, billions on barrels of oil flow through here every year. The country is also a problem as the area is one of the worst affected by piracy, Somali pirates raid many ships each year and cost the global economy billions of pounds! An international consensus on how to tackle the pirates is required to make the area safer, British crews in the UAE monitor much of the Gulf of Aden and surrounding waters and international crews investigate any disturbances. Yet the vastness of the area needing to be patrolled and the money that pirates can earn will make stamping out the piracy very difficult and very expensive. It’s not only the waters surrounding Somalia that are unsafe, people are frequently kidnapped from neighbouring countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia. The kidnappers mostly target white people (due to the chance of a higher ransom), last year a British man was kidnapped from his holiday villa on the Kenyan coast and many more have been kidnapped over the years.

African Union troops have managed to push insurgents
out of Mogadishu but they still have a lot of work left.

More importantly though than the security of shipping lanes, defence of trade and a few foreign people is the people of Somalia. Shebab insurgents have held the capital, Mogadishu, for a long time now and only today were African Union troops, led by a group of Ethiopians, able to push them back. The fighting is far from over, the Al-Qaeda allied insurgents have a strong following in the country, chiefly to do with the high level of poverty in Somalia. Just like Yemen, what Somalia needs is money and lots of it. But just like Yemen, nobody knows where the money will come from as the West is broke. The people of Mogadishu and other recently freed areas are only just beginning to rebuild a society that has been destroyed by years of perpetual warfare. I hope that the London conference can produce exactly what Somalia leads and spur the international community on to do some good for the Somali people.