Somalia seeks help in toxic waste clearance

Somalia appealed Tuesday for help to clear toxic waste dumped illegally on its vast coastline, arguing that the fight against toxic dumping goes hand in hand with the fight against piracy.

"If the international community wants to limit acts of piracy, it has to help Somalis keep illegal foreign fishing and toxic waste dumping away from their coasts," Deputy Prime Minister Abdulrahman Adan Ibrahim Ibbi told African Union maritime security experts gathered here.

"We appeal the delegates attending this assembly ... to share with my government (the) clearance of toxic material and nuclear waste containers dumped in African coastal areas," he added.

Some of the containers came to surface when tsunami tidal waves hit Indian Ocean countries in 2004, he added in a speech.

Ibbi did not disclose where the waste was located but urged the bloc to take samples to assess the damage.

AU Infrastructure and Energy Commissioner Elham Ibrahim told the meeting the recent increase in both unlawful activities in African waters and in piracy off Somalia and in the Gulf of Guinea has prompted African leaders to act "to rid the continent of these scourges which are undermining economic activity and the image of the continent".

Allegations that Somalia, lawless since the downfall of Siad Barre's regime in 1991, has become a dumping ground for toxic waste have circulated since the early 1990s.

Somali pirates sometimes cite illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste as justification for the vessels they seize in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
The pirates who hijacked the Ukrainian ship MV Faina in September 2008 assailants demanded 35 million dollars in ransom to "clean up waste it dumped" along the Horn of Africa nation's coast.

The ship was released after a 134-day ordeal, and a much smaller ransom was paid.

Somali pirates, targeting one of the world's busiest maritime trade routes, raked in an estimated 60 million dollars in ransoms last year.

Source: AFP