The number of ships seized by Somali pirates has fallen dramatically this year. According to the , "in 2010, pirates seized 47 vessels. This year they've taken only five."
That's good news for ship captains, but not so much for the pirates:
...Abdirizaq Saleh, once had bodyguards and maids and the attention of beautiful women. When ransoms came in, a party was thrown, with blaring music, bottles of wine, the stimulant called khat and women for every man. Now Saleh is hiding from creditors in a dirty room filled with the dust-covered TVs and high-end clothes he acquired when flush.
"Ships are being held longer, ransoms are getting smaller and attacks are less likely to succeed," Salah said while sitting on a threadbare mattress covered by a mosquito net. A plastic rain jacket he used while out at sea dangled from the door.
While many former pirates are unemployed, Mohamed Abdalla Aden has returned to his old job as a soccer coach for village boys. Aden said it now takes him a month to earn as much as he used to spend in a single day as a pirate.
"The coasts became too dangerous," he said, holding an old, beat-up mobile phone. "Dozens of my friends are unaccounted for and some ended up in jail."
A spokeswoman for the European Union Naval Force credits the drop to increased international military efforts and stepped up security efforts on-board ships.
For More: with pirate negotiator, "Ali."
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