UN extends Somalia anti-piracy effort by three months
Armed Somali pirates carrying out preparations to a skiff in Hobyo, northeastern Somalia, ahead of new attacks on ships sailing in the Gulf of Aden on January 4, 2010. PHOTO | AFP
With the yearslong program in place, "no attack has been reported for four years," said Sheraz Gasri, coordinator of the French mission to the United Nations.
But Somalia stressed that the absence of pirate attacks in the western Indian Ocean justifies bringing the operation to an end.
The three-month extension should "allow for a transition to a bilateral military cooperation framework," Somalia's UN envoy Abukar Dahir Osman said as he hailed the program overall as a "successful" eradication of piracy.
