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Mogadishu, Somalia (NewsBahn) – At least 50 former buccaneers from various districts in the semiautonomous Somali state of Puntland on Thursday ended a months-long training workshop in the capital Garowe.

A well-organized ceremony intended to mark the conclusion of the rehabilitation course for the former pirates was held in the presence of government officials and civil society groups.

The program, which was the third held in Puntland, was jointly conducted by the justice ministry and a local NGO, NCA, that operates in the regional Somali state.

The chairperson of NCA, Yusuf Abdulkadir Hersi, addressed the closing ceremony. He said that for many years young men worked as pirates off Somalia’s lawless coasts, but that the program had given them awareness and taught job skills.

“It’s shame on us to watch our boys working as buccaneers, we have to try our best to swerve them from this bad experience, I mean the act of piracy,” Hersi stated.

He said that the 50 young former pirates were collected from five districts in the northeastern region where the largest number of Somali buccaneers are based.

Puntland’s deputy minister for justice, Mahmoud Said Hussein, told the audience that his administration will continue such programs in a bid to uproot pirate-related acts in his region and the rest of Somalia.

Since the country descended into chaos 20 years ago, the unprotected waters of Somalia have become some of the most dangerous seas in the world because of rampant piracy.

Scores of commercial ships and luxury boats are seized by pirates every year.

Although the Puntland region is peaceful in comparison with the troubled south-central Somalia, it is a hotbed of buccaneers, drug dealers and human traffickers.

Correspondent Shafi’i Mohyaddin Abokar contributed this report.

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