UN Board Approves Funds to Fight Somalia Piracy
To help Somalia and neighbouring countries prosecute suspected pirates, a UN board comprising of ten nations has approved USD 2.1 million funds for five projects, reported Associated Press.
“Piracy off Somalia is a menace to the region and the world,” UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe, chair of the board overseeing a new trust fund, was quoted as saying.
“Prosecuting suspected pirates is an important piece of the international strategy to combat the problem,” he was quoted to be saying.
It may be mentioned that an international armada of warships patrolled an area in the north of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden for over a year to check piracy. However, countries which succeed to arrest pirates struggled to bring them to book because of legal technicalities.
Of the five projects, four in line for the funding are framed to back institutions in the Seychelles, which along with Kenya serves as a regional centre to prosecute pirates, as well as in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland state and its breakaway region of Somaliland.
They will specifically deal with mentoring prosecutors and police, building and rehabilitating prisons, reviewing domestic legislation on piracy and enhancing court capacity.
A media project will help local partners design and spread anti-piracy messages across Somalia.
The trust fund was launched in January by a Contact Group on piracy off Somalia. Its supervising board includes 10 voting members: Djibouti, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Kenya, the Marshall Islands, Norway, Somalia and the United States.
There are also three non-voting UN bodies: the International Maritime Organisation, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the UN country team for Somalia.
