The UN on Monday authorized foreign countries to send ships into Somali waters to combat a wave of piracy along the Horn of African country’s lawless coast.
The UN Security Council’s 15 members unanimously adopted a resolution, pushed by France and the US, that is in part a response to requests for help from both the Somali government and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Somalia’s 3,025km coastline is the longest in Africa and near key shipping routes that connect the Indian Ocean with the Red Sea.
More than a dozen pirate attacks have occurred this year alone; two more ships were attacked in the Gulf of Aden last week.
The resolution says that foreign nations’ ships cooperating with Somalia’s government during the next six months can “enter the territorial waters of Somalia for the purpose of repressing acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea.”
Transitional Somalian President Abdullahi Yusuf told Security Council members in Djibouti that “the issue of piracy is beyond our present means and capabilities.”
“Hence, we would like to request the Security Council to urgently adopt the draft resolution on piracy off the coast of Somalia,” he said.
Somalia’s fragile government, backed by Ethiopia, has been battling Islamist-led insurgents since early last year. Somalia lacks a navy and its transitional government has been struggling to assert control since it was formed in 2004 with UN help.
The US Navy also has led international patrols to try to combat piracy in the region.
Sailors on merchant ships say they typically do not carry the weapons that would be needed to fight off the small vessels carrying pirates armed with guns and machetes.
Indonesian Ambassador to the UN Marty Natalegawa said his nation approved the resolution despite some concerns that it might infringe on a UN treaty governing the high seas.
“We were assured that this focus on Somalia — it does not infringe international law. It does not create new customary international law,” Natalegawa said.
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