[27/November/2009]
ADEN, Nov. 27 (Saba) – Yemen has arrested six Somali pirates with their weapons on a boat off Aden.

The Interior ministry said on Friday the items seized with the Africans included machine guns, RPGs and other missiles with ammunition.

The arrestees' names were Abdul Razaq Othman Ibrahim, Mohammed Yousuf, Ali Mohammed Ali Saleh, Faisal Othman Ali, Tahir Yousuf Fareh and Mohammed Abdain Mohammed; aged 19-25.

They are being investigated.

The arrests took place a day after the International Maritime Organization praised Yemen for its utmost efforts in combating piracy off Somalia.

The praise came during a meeting between the IMO Secretary General and Transport Minister Khalid Ibrahim al-Wazeer that took place on the margins of the 26th Assembly of the IMO being held in London.

Recently, the European Union has called for radical solutions to the soaring piracy off the Horn of Africa.

Among the solutions are fighting poverty and preventing the failure of the Somali state, the EU says.

The EU also suggested registering the ships passing in the region to the maritime security operations in an effort to limit attacks on vessels and people.

In October, 9 Somali pirates were caught off Yemen's western province of Taiz with weapons.

Early in October, 12 Somalis appeared in court in Yemen facing piracy charges.

Three of the group, seized in February when marine troops recovered a Yemeni oil tanker earlier seized in the pirate-plagued Gulf of Aden, confessed to piracy and other illegal acts such as human trafficking.

The Africans also face charges related to the murder of one of the tanker's crew members and causing another to go missing as well as forcible robbery.

Three pirates were killed in the release operation and 12 others arrested.

In recent years, piracy has soared off Somalia sparking regional and international concerns over threats to one of the world's busiest waterways where about 20.000 vessels pass a year.

In response, many countries dispatched anti-pirate missions into the region, which are now patrolling the Arabian and Red Seas.

There are more than 700.000 African refugees, mostly from Somalia and Ethiopia, in Yemen, amid an alarming flow of the displaced requiring solution to prevent more burdens on Yemen's fragile economy and protect its social structure.

FR