The Rise and Fall of Somali Pirates

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I will never forget how a Belgian film director, in collaboration with the authorities, managed to lure a Somali pirate to Belgium under the pretext of being an expert in a film about his own life. When the pirate landed in Brussels, he was promptly arrested and trialed for hijacking a Belgian ship. He is still in prison to this day.

As a Somali myself i cant lie and i don't care if am taken serious or not but i grew up in Eeyl/somalia where by in 2008 to 2011 it was the top pirate place , lol it was home to 80% pirates there i was 10 to 11 that time and i cant forget when my elder brother ran from home to join his friends to make a piracy mission and i still can't rub my head from the fact that this 15 year old dude came home with 35,000$ in 50's and 100's my dad was so furious took the whole money to the pirate lord and told him to leave his son alone . the pirate lord threatened my dad that his son was old enough to do what he wants, but my dad being a dad took this sacrifice to safe his son's life and we migrated to Mugdisho in 2012 after the whole operation of piracy went down we studied in Mugdisho grew up there and we came to Uganda in 2015 and then left to Canada in 2017 where we all grew up became men and women , am 24 now my brother who was doing that sh*t is 29 and married with 2 kids and a business running my dad is retired and we work for him glad he made those sacrifices for us to be where we are today my bro laughs whenever we talk about pirate stuff he says he cant believe how he touched 35k in his teenage years and never touched it now lol thanks JH for acknowledging my country . EDIT : I appreciate everyone about the positive messages. incase anyone has a question lol my insta : Abdikadir_ak0 . (lets talk maybe)

I’ll never forget in 7th grade I did a report on these pirates in front of the class. I worked really hard on it just to have my teacher laugh and say pirates don’t exist in 2011. The rest of the class laughed at me as well. I came home and my dad was furious. He knew I didn’t work hard on much of my schoolwork so when I did he was upset to hear the teacher laughed. Rip dad I’ll never forget that

I remember back in 2008-2010 when I was studying in uni, I was reading about Somali pirates every week. I totally forgot about them until this video. Nice to see there was a solution to the piracy problems there - stories of people being abducted was really sad during those times.

Hi Johnny, I’m a Somali living in Bari and I really appreciate your video about the Somali pirates. You did a great job of explaining the history and the context of piracy in Somalia, and how it affected the people and the region. I especially liked how you showed the map of Somalia and its disputed territories with Ethiopia and Kenya. You are one of the few journalists who tell the truth about Somalia and its challenges. Thank you for your work and your curiosity. I hope you will make more videos about Somalia and other African countries in the future. Keep up the good work! 👏👏👏

As a Somali guy who lived in Somalia specially in those regions during the pirate epidemic in the horn of Africa I can truly say you have done your research very well. Your are fair also you look both ways the good and the bad . The collapse of the central goverment in 1991 has made Somalia a placed abandoned by the help of GOD and MEN .for a long time it was a place that breeds violence ,war ,terrorism ,starvation ,drought and corruption. But I can truly say the Somali pirates at the beginning was a mission of patriotism and survival. You mention only Iraq and Yemen but it was more than that alot of European and Asian nations were also drawing in large scale the untouched sea food of the Somali territory in their huge ships . Hence living little if nothing at all for those communities . This was something that needed to be done for them to live since 95% Of their food was was coming from the see in a country scourged by drought and war. And it worked .we called them heroes but then the same people who destroyed the goverment joined in the war lord and started turning what was right to defend your territory against foreign ship into a multi million dollar crime org .the killing , the ransom and kidnapping that was not those communities but thugs who only care about money "My English is not good that best as I can try .thank you #johhny this topic was personal reminds me of home as the The MORMON video was for you. Thanks for covering this

This was such a great episode man! And you're not just a great journalist, but a great story teller as well.

Love your insightful, researched, thought provoking content Keep up the awesome work!

Appreciate the backstory on this

I thought this was about one piece

Okay, I have fallen in love with this channel. You prepare and put really relevant topics. Learning a lot from you, and so I'm hoping you keep this up. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

Love what you’re doing Johnny!

I have a friend who planned to sail around the world. He went from San Fran to Panama to the Caribbean to Portugal then finally the the eastern Mediterranean. He got to Turkey and realized there was no direction ahead that didn’t involve pirates. He turned around and sailed home.

As a Somali pirate, I can confirm this is true.

Thank you for being up to date on important topics & covering up to date real time events

Thank you for reporting on this subject. Have been following this since before 9-11... you covered all the main points and I learned new things because of your team's in-depth reporting. Thank you.

As a modern day officer, also working on cargo ships! I have to admit this route still scares my crew and many onboard. But this video truly represents the truth behind it all. Thank you for this.

I am Somali and i live in a coastal city called Mogadishu this depiction of the events that happened and the way you visualize it is madly accurate and hats off to u broski ❤🇸🇴🇸🇴🇸🇴

I'm Somali, and when our government fell, the world saw an opportunity to take advantage of us. They polluted our water, wrecked our economy, disrupted our conflict resolution efforts, and intentionally contributed to the rise of terrorism, making Somalia's troubles even worse. In response, the Somali water guards stepped up to protect our territorial waters. Many, including myself, don't consider them pirates because they respected our wishes and stayed within our waters. I'm deeply sorry for any harm that innocent individuals suffered, regardless of how they ended up in such dire situations. Now, I'm relieved to see our country improving. Everyone, no matter where they're from, wants peace, fairness, and love. These things can help heal the wounds of the past and create a better future where everyone, no matter their background, can live together in peace.