The ensuing power vacuum, and the lack of authority in the country has resulted in a surge in piracy, which occurs along Somalia's 1,900-mile (3,100 km) coastline, the Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean as well, areas through which run some of the world's busiest shipping lines.
[2][3] The Egyptians, fishermen working for a company called Mashreq Marine Product, were captured with their two fishing vessels, Mumtaz 1 and Samara Ahmed, by Somali pirates in April 2009.
Despite being held on both ships and thus separated, the fisherman coordinated their actions against the captors, using the tools and machetes they were able to get hold of against the pirates, before seizing their guns and using it against them.
The lack of any acknowledgment of the conflicting accounts suggests the possibility that successive news agencies republished the story without doing any original research or fact checking.
The first occurred in April, when 21 American crewmen fought against Somali pirates in what was known as the Maersk Alabama hijacking, until the ship's captain handed himself over as a hostage to save the lives of his crew.