Somali Pirates vs. Egyptian Fisherman: guess who wins?

Via Wired's Danger Room blog, word that one ought not fck with Egyptian fisherman if one is a Somali pirate:

A group of Egyptian fishermen apparently escaped from their high-seas captors the old-school way, overpowering the pirates and seizing their weapons. Reuters has the scoop on how it went down, plus a quote from "an associate of the pirates" (nice!) who told the agency the Egyptians made a run for it after seizing the pirates' weapons. "The two Egyptian ships sailed away after a fight with my friends," said the associate, who gave his name to Reuters as Farah.

Note to Pirates: Don't Mess with Egyptian Fishermen

• [Anonymous]

  Egyptian fishermen were fishing in the international water, not in the Somalis water. Any fisherman knows that fishing in the overseas is legal. In addition Somalis pirates captured previously a lot of ships from all over the world, even from they captured oil ship from Saudi Arabia. finally we didn’t forget that the Egyptian fishermen are heroes , they are kidnapped over 4 months, along away about their families, without food, and with the threat of death if the required money from the pirates is not paid. and under these circumstances, the release themselves and return home

• [DeWynken]

  J. Crew Somalia: Summer 2009

  xD

• [Felton]

  Anonymous@15: “Hate to take away from a serious conversation… but… Why does it look like those photos are from a photo shoot for a gun catalog? They all seem to be striking a pose with their weapons…. It looks like the sears catalog + heavy artillery.”

  I just assumed they were Facebook pictures.

• [mdh]

  “Guess who wins?”

  Halliburton?

• [adamnvillani]

  Yes, J. Random Somali fisherman is really kind of screwed these days. I don’t think resorting to piracy is the best course of action, but it’s not like just living life peacefully as a fisherman is a very viable option these days, either.

  What would really be nice is if somebody actually worked on unifying the country under a reasonably sane regime and forming a functioning government.

  On the other hand, Somalia does provide an example of a libertarian utopia. If you’re a fanatic for limited government, there it is.

• [Anonymous]

  I liked it better when they attacked a luxury cruise liner (MV Seabourn Spirit) and got driven off by the shipboard LRAD.

• [Cicada]

  @23 Kinda shows off the difference between “limited government” and “no effective government”.

  Limiting your food intake means you stay slim. Eliminating it means you starve to death. Sometimes a little is worth more than a lot or none.

• [Phikus]

  Sum Zero: Piracy is ethical? Also, please note from the report, as I mentioned previously, that this incident occurred “on the high seas” and not off the Somali coast as you are wanting to presume.

• [Phikus]

  And btw, there are many avenues to peaceful protest before you turn to piracy. I agree Somalia is a troubled nation, but it seems to me that the main reason they are doing it is because it is highly profitable. No matter what legitimate grievances they may have had, when they turn to such acts toward others who are just passing by, especially now that they have been ranging far from the Somalian coast, then it negates whatever just cause they may have had in the past.

• [Anonymous]

  Tahlk about lemmings Somali claim fishing rights right up to the beaches of Yeman Saudi Arabia and abunch of couch international law experts decide that fisherman over 200 miles away from Somalia are “poaching and over Fishing illegaly’ goood greaf get life! GOOD JOB FOR THESE BRAVE MEN!

• [Darren Garrison]

  “A group of around Egyptian fishermen…”

  Proof read, folks! (Not you, Xeni, Wired.)

  I’m always seeing similar (or worse) errors in news posts on major news sites and even from the AP. Saving money by eliminating copy editors is probably not a great idea.

• [sum.zero]

  where the egyptians captured while illegally fishing off the somali coast?

  • [Anonymous]

    They were catching illegal fish?

• [Purple Library Guy]

  #29–Uh, four months without food and they overpowered their captors? I don’t think so.
  At which point I lack confidence in how reliable the other things you say are.
  Specifically, some have said the Egyptians were in international waters. But I haven’t seen any actual information about where they were captured. How’s anyone supposed to know, anyway?
  Presumably, whatever the truth, the Somalis are likely to say they were totally fishing in Somali waters and the Egyptians would probably say not at all they were totally within their rights and, you know, if there were a lot of other people watching that makes it hard to do piracy.

• [sum.zero]

  @ phikus

  one man’s “pirate” is another man’s freedom fighter/robin hood.

  however, i did not advocate the ethicality of the “pirates” actions. i said it was to be expected based on the history. please don’t attempt to explain away unethical behaviour by blaming the other side too. it’s a weak argument.

  i fail to find your quote in the article [or the articles linked from it]. i do find, “A group of around Egyptian fishermen apparently escaped from their high-seas captors the old-school way, overpowering the pirates and seizing their weapons.” this looks to me less like an accurate description of the events and more like a colourful adjective to describe the “pirates”.

  lastly, did you read any of the links from that google search? you might find some of them illuminating.

• [Steaming Pile]

  I thought the pirates were ranking victims by value. Fishing boats from Egypt are now high-value targets? Stupid pirates.

• [Xopher]

  I heard that Egyptian ships have been illegally fishing in Somali waters for some time now, and overfishing them to the extent that non-pirate Somali fishermen can’t survive any more.

  So: a plague on both your houses, Egyptian fishing boats and Somali pirates.

• [Church]

  Hi-value = illegally fishing in Somali waters. Lesson learned: just kill the Egyptian poachers.

• [sum.zero]

  how many somali pirates are actually unemployed fisherman?

• [Anonymous]

  Note that the pirates were defeated by the fishermens’ ninja-like skills of stealth and invisibility. Ninjas FTW

• [randalll]

  I read that a lot of the Somali pirates have become pirates almost as if it were a militia, because foreign fishermen have been invading their territory and making like in Somalia even worse for fishermen. Not all pirates are necessarily in it just to make cash.

• [sum.zero]

  fishermen*

• [Pantograph]

  Actually the Egyptians are stil being held captive, but they are in the Nile about it.

• [Phikus]

  The report says this occurred on the high seas, not Somali waters. Also, as I understand it, there is no official regulation currently designated for fishing or other maritime activity off the Somali coast, which is why the pirates have free reign there and why Egyptians can legally fish there if they choose. Correct me if I am wrong.

  The report also states:

  As the BBC notes, the two Egyptian fishing vessels were captured four months ago along with an Italian tugboat — which was freed after a ransom was paid.

• [pauldrye]

  @Steaming Pile: Well, the Somalis probably heard about Bernie Madoff making billions on a pyramid scheme and naturally figured Egyptians were involved.

• [Anonymous]

  Egyptian fishermen come all the way to steal the fish from somali territorial waters , and when they are caught by the pirates the beg them for mercy and claim that they are their brothers .
  Now they are being welcomed as heroes back home ,and nobody talks about their illegal fishing in somali territorial waters .
  I hope they won’t dare to go back to somalia to steal their fish .

• [Anonymous]

  @ #2

  You asked and answered your own question. Where? “Off the Somali coast”

  Oh – did you you meant “were”?

  (end snark)

• [Anonymous]

  i don’t get somepeople points over here when they talk about the polution caused by the small egyptian fishing boats or how they were overfishing from the indian ocean . i wish that you people see the truth of this story these fishermen are not killers they are people who are working hard to earn their living and they were fighting back to rescue their own lives and that is all

• [Anonymous]

  Sum.zero: All of them.

  The most interesting part of the international piracy racket is the way various entities in the USA, Britain, China, etc. feed information to the pirates about what to hit and when. It’s a very technically interesting global communications network; the firewalls are in Russia.

• [Anonymous]

  Hate to take away from a serious conversation… but… Why does it look like those photos are from a photo shoot for a gun catalog? They all seem to be striking a pose with their weapons…. It looks like the sears catalog + heavy artillery.

• [Keeper of the Lantern]

  Where’s the crasher squirrel?

• [bobk]

  The Somalis are still fishermen. They’re just going for bigger fish.

• [sum.zero]

  @ phikus

  well, as long as it’s legal we can just forget about ethics…

  however, the issue is that most of these foreign owned vessels are unlicensed, which makes the fishing illegal.

  they also overfish, decimating the fishery.

  not to mention the dumping of toxic waste.

  the somalis have been asking for international assistance with this via the un since at least 2006. what do you expect them to do when they get silence in response?

  is the fishing off of the somali coast illegal?