Dan De Luce was a staff writer at Foreign Policy from 2015-2018.
Articles by
Dan De Luce
TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY JEAN-MARC MOJON Mohamed Garfanji, Somalia's top pirate boss, stands on sandy dunes just outside the central Somali coastal town of Hobyo as he watches the outline of a hijacked ship anchored off the coast on August 20, 2010. Garfanji, was behind some of the most spectacular catches in modern piracy -- including the 2008 capture of a Ukrainian ship packed with tanks and weapons -- and at barely 30, Garfanji now runs a small army. But his remains a Robin Hood narrative of Somali piracy as a struggle by dispossessed fishermen against vessels from Europe and Asia violating Somalia's exclusive economic zone and poaching its abundant tuna under naval protection. Fighting a losing battle against the sand that has already completely covered the old Italian port, Hobyo's scattering of rundown houses and shacks looks anything but the nerve centre of an activity threatening global shipping. AFP PHOTO / ROBERTO SCHMIDT (Photo credit should read ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)