The Pirates of Somalia_ Inside Their Hidden World - Jay Bahadur [108]
The bluff on which Dhanane was situated wrapped around to cradle a large inlet at its base. Walking to the edge of the cliff, I gazed onto a white sand beach fifty metres directly below; the drop was precipitous, but a near-vertical path allowed access to it. Waves of rolling blue turned gently to green as they broke against the shallow incline of the beachhead. Subtract the wind, install a few shark nets, bring an end to the civil war, and Dhanane would have made a fine spot for a seaside resort. On the sand stood a solitary building resembling a beach house, surrounded by overturned fishing skiffs. There were no fishermen in sight, and it was easy to understand why; the winds in Dhanane were even stronger than those in Eyl, and in the horseshoe-shaped bay below they must have been close to tropical storm force. A pirate skiff would have been hard-pressed to make it past the first salvo of waves breaking against the shore.
My bodyguard Said grabbed my arm and pointed eagerly leftward on the horizon. There, almost obscured by the edge of the bluff, was the object of my trip to this obscure little town. It was the Dutch-owned cargo ship Marathon, hijacked on May 7, twenty-eight days previously, while transporting coke fuel through the Gulf of Aden safety corridor. There were eight Ukrainian crew members on board.
As I snapped away at these various sights, digital SLR in one hand, camcorder in the other, a number of young men detached themselves from the huts above and made their way to the cliffside to observe. They soon wandered over to Omar and began to question him.
“Why did you bring this spy?” one of them said. “Tell him that it’s a Yemeni fishing ship,” pointing to the Marathon, clearly hoping that I would go looking somewhere else for Europeans. He was hardly to blame for this cynical attitude, given the international media’s failure to spare any ink for the scores of unreported attacks on Yemeni fishermen.
The curious youth soon tired of their windy watch-keeping and receded back into the town, glancing back at me over their shoulders. We began to wind our way back up through the village, the orange tarpaulins of the hut walls snapping violently as we passed like sails luffing in the wind. We came to a small enclosure ringed by piles of stacked brushwood, where a few townspeople had gathered beside a small outdoor kiosk. Omar motioned to a thatched lean-to nearby, and I pushed through the canvas entrance and into the dark, cool interior. There were a few plastic chairs scattered in a circle around the wooden strut holding up the hut, and Omar and I sat down.
Two members of the local pirate chapter lounged on the woven mats lining the dirt floor of the lean-to. One, whom I later learned was the group’s accountant, had recently arrived from Garowe in anticipation of the impending delivery of the ransom money; he lay curled in a semi-foetal position, his cellphone clutched in his left hand. Another member of the gang, sporting an oversized UNICEF T-shirt, joked that he had renounced piracy and was now working for the United Nations. Discarded khat leaves lay in two messy piles at his feet, flanked by several packs of British Tobacco cigarettes. Ombaali reclined next to him with his 7-Up in hand, and they chatted like old comrades.
I had no idea whose hut this was or who had invited us in, but soon a man dressed in brown khaki pants and vest entered and greeted us. His name was Dar Muse Gaben, and he soon revealed himself to be a high-ranking member of the local group, the man in charge of organizing and delivering supplies to his colleagues aboard the Marathon. Gaben took his work into his off-hours, it seemed, because he soon returned with a round of shah and several warm 7-Ups for Omar and me. After some prodding, Gaben cautiously agreed to answer a few of my questions.
“Illegal fishing, that’s the only reason we’re doing this,” he said. Then, in an effort to sound convincing, “Last night, there were two illegal fishing ships right here.