International donors have pledged over $250 million for improving the security situation in Somalia and to help its government in fighting the escalating piracy problem off the country's coast, said officials on Thursday.

"We are on target, we are even a little bit higher because the target was $250 million," said EU Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Louis Michel told reporters after the four-hour conference in Brussels. "It seems that we are also above 250 million if you take into account material aid."

Michel described the donor conference in Brussels as "a full success", adding that the European Union would donate 72 million euros to Somalia for improving the security situation in the Horn of Africa nation.

The donor conference was held on Thursday in Brussels in the backdrop of the increasing pirate attacks off the Somali coast, and was chaired by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the African Union. Representatives from over 30 nations attended it.

Addressing the conference, Ban described piracy as a symptom of anarchy and insecurity, adding that "more security on the ground will make less piracy on the seas".

 

"Piracy is not a water-borne disease. It is a symptom of anarchy and insecurity on the ground," Ban said. "Dealing with it requires an integrated strategy that addresses the fundamental issue of lawlessness in Somalia."

Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed thanked the international community for its generosity and promised that his government would do "all we can to restore peace in Somalia and end the crisis we have lived through, so that Somalia can become a place of peace."

Officials said that the money generated at the conference would be used to support the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia and to build up a 10,000-strong police force and a 6,000-strong national security force, in the country.

Somalia has not had a proper functioning government after the fall of the last government in 1991. The current interim government under Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the moderate Islamist who became president in January after UN-brokered peace talks, is striving to assert its authority in the war-torn country.

Currently, a 4,300-strong AU force is struggling with their peacekeeping efforts in Somalia after the ousted Islamist fighters turned to guerrilla warfare against the government and AU troops. So far only Uganda and Burundi have contributed troops to the AU peacekeeping force, which was initially planned to have a strength of over 8,000.

Moreover, the coast of Somali has been affected by piracy in the recent months and more than hundred pirate attacks have been reported in the waters off Somalia since the beginning of 2008. The increasing attacks comes despite the presence of some 20 warships, deployed by navies of the NATO, the European Union, Russia, China, and India, in the region to protect cargo and cruise ships against piracy.

Source RTTNews.

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