Eyl

Look at Eyl

Eyl (also written Eeyl , Eil or Ayl ) is a city in Somalia with about 19,000 inhabitants. It is located on the east coast of the Nugaal region , which is part of the de facto autonomous Puntland in northern Somalia. The Nugaal River flows into the Indian Ocean at Eyl .

The place has seven schools and a hospital.

history

The fighters of Mohammed Abdullah Hassan (1856–1920), the rebel leader known as Mad Mullah by the British , went to the port city, then also called Illig , when they were pursued by British troops in the 4th campaign in 1903/04 . The place is easy to defend on the land side and has already housed 700 of its people. The British decided on a landing operation on April 21, 1904 with three ships under Rear Admiral GL Atkinson-Wiles. The approximately 500 landed seamen and marines advanced on a 1.2 km wide front from the south. The dervishes were quickly put to flight. They left 58 dead and 27 rifles. Over the course of the next few days, the caves along the coast were "cleaned up" of the remnants. Italian seafarers who had arrived in the meantime were also involved.

In Eyl there are ruins of a radar station built by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, as well as a stone fort that was built under Mohammed Abdullah Hassan in the early 20th century.

economy

Many of the residents of Eyl make a living from fishing. However, this livelihood is compromised by the fact that Thai, Spanish, Chinese and Russian fleets are illegally overfishing the Somali coast and no functioning Somali state is preventing them from doing so. Eyl and the surrounding area were also affected by the tsunami on December 26, 2004 .

Pirate attacks

In view of the high profits from piracy off the Somali coast , numerous people have come to Eyl from other parts of the country and use the place as a starting point for pirate activities. The Puntland authorities are hardly present in Eyl.

In 2008, a number of attacks on ocean freighters started from Eyl. 38 of the ships attacked off the coast of Somalia were hijacked and maneuvered into the waters of Eyl. The aim of the pirates is to extort ransom in order to increase their standard of living.

The most famous targets were the ships: