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The European roots of Somali piracy

The European roots of Somali piracy euobserver.com LEIGH PHILLIPS21.04.2009 @ 10:49 CETEUOBSERVER / FEATURE – As global powers ratchet up the naval pressure off the coast of Somalia and the European Union this week prepares to play host to a major international conference on the growing scourge of piracy, very little attention is being paid to the other ‘piracy’ in the area – the decades of European illegal fishing and dumping of toxic waste in Somali waters……………………This irregular, self-styled coast guard also set out to put an end to widespread use of their waters as essentially an exceedingly cheap landfill, scrap yard, toilet and nuclear storage site all rolled into one by foreign ships that have been dumping industrial, medical and even radioactive waste.

As early as 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned that the vicious tsunami of the previous December had broken up tonnes of rusting barrels of such waste illegally that had been dumped in the country’s waters for years.

Some 300 people died at the time from contact with the waste, while others, according to a UN report, notably in the regions near the northeastern coastal towns of Hobbio and Benadir, were afflicted with a range of respiratory and skin infections, mouth ulcers and bleeding, and abdominal haemorrhages at rates far above normal………………

………Over a decade ago, from 1997 to 1998, Greenpeace Italy and the Famiglia Cristiana newspaper uncovered evidence that Swiss-based Achair Partners and Progresso, an Italian waste broker had signed agreements with warlord Ali Mahdi to dump hazardous waste in Somali waters.

EUobserver

April 22, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, secrets,lies and civil liberties | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear wastes, radioactive