Somalia calls for coastguard funding

According to a report in the Financial Times, deputy prime minister Abdulrahim Adan Ibrahim said on a visit to London: “From July 26, if we have the kind of support we want from the international community, we will patrol the whole coastline of Somalia.”

Unlike the international naval patrols in the Gulf of Aden, the Somali coastguard will also be mandated to take action against pirates on land. Hundreds of young men were in training to sign up to the new service, Prof Ibrahim said.

The development has been welcomed by BIMCO, the largest shipowner trade organisation. BIMCO security specialist Giles Noakes said: “We are aware that the Somali foreign minister and others have been calling for assistance to help build a Somali coastguard.

“This is an extremely important request and one that we know will go a long way to resolving some of the many problems ashore and on land.”

He said the issue was being addressed, particularly in terms of capacity-building measures, by both the International Maritime Organization as a major part of its Djibouti Accord and by the contact group on Somalia.

“The manpower may be available, but we need to see hardware for them to be trained on, and then used, to be an effective coastguard.”

However, other security sources, who asked not to be named, injected a note of caution, given that the interim government’s de facto writ does not extend beyond the capital Mogadishu. Most pirates are based in the breakaway Puntland region and exert political influence on a local scale.

“None of this will be any good unless the legal and legislative infrastructure in Somalia is developed at the same time as a coastguard,” the source maintained.