It is a slow, rough drive to Eyl – the tiny coastal town that has become notorious as the centre of Somalia’s lucrative pirate industry.

A dusty track meanders across hundreds of kilometres of rocky wilderness before slipping steeply down the side of a reddish canyon and hugging the contours of a small river out towards the roaring waves of the Indian Ocean.

“If you go without guards the pirates will take you for ransom – that is guaranteed,” warned a United Nations security adviser before we left the regional capital, Garowe.

We duly took six heavily armed guards, provided by the authorities in Puntland, the autonomous north-eastern region of Somalia now struggling to clear its coastline – and reputation – of the stain of piracy.

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