MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippines, which provides a significant number of the world’s commercial sailors, said Saturday it would contribute $20,000 to a U.N. trust fund to support Somali security forces in their fight against piracy.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that 44 Filipino sailors are currently being held by Somali pirates, who have severely disrupted shipping in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean.
The statement said the Philippines, which supplies about 30 percent of the world’s 1.2 million merchant sailors, was “committed to help restore peace and security in Somalia.”
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on all countries to provide urgent military support to Somalia’s embattled transitional government and the poorly resourced African Union peacekeeping force. The Horn of Africa country has not had a functioning government since the ouster of a longtime dictator in 1991 and is driven by fighting among clan warlords and an Islamist insurgency.
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