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鈥淎 lot of people in our communities don鈥檛 view them as pirates. I think they are defenders of the sea.鈥�

In 2011, Somali piracy peaked. Crews were attacked at gunpoint and many held as hostages for months. The World Bank says there were 243 incidents that year.

After a crackdown involving international navies, attacks plummeted to almost zero.

But since last year there鈥檚 been an uptick in incidents. Houthi attacks on shipping using the Suez Canal - in support of the Palestinians in Gaza 鈥� drew global attention, and firepower, away from the Somali coastline. And the root causes of the problem 鈥� poverty and lack of infrastructure for local fishing communities, and illegal fishing by foreign trawlers 鈥� were never addressed.

So could piracy return to the levels of 15 years ago?

Alan @kasujja speaks with a local fisherman from the affected town of Eyl, and to fisheries expert Abdirahman Mohamed.