Eyl
Encyclopedia
Eyl is an ancient town in the northern Puntland
Puntland
Puntland , officially the Puntland State of Somalia , is a region in northeastern Somalia, centered on Garowe in the Nugaal province. Its leaders declared the territory an autonomous state in 1998....

 region of Somalia
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...

. It is situated near the Hafun peninsula
Hafun
Hafun is a 40 km long low-lying peninsula in the Bari region of northern Somalia. The promontory juts out into the Indian Ocean, where it is known as Ras Hafun or Raas Xaafuun...

.

History

Eyl is the site of many historical artifacts from Somalia's pre-colonial period. Along with a rock shelter in the southern town of Buur Heybe, it is the seat of the first professional archaeological excavation in the country.

Piracy

In the late 2000s, Eyl became a pirate haven
Pirate haven
Pirate havens are ports or harbors that are a safe place for pirates to repair their vessels, resupply, recruit, spend their plunder, avoid capture, and/or lie in wait for merchant ships to pass by. The areas have governments that are unable or unwilling to enforce maritime laws...

, with more than a dozen ships being held captive by pirate crews
Piracy in Somalia
Piracy off the coast of Somalia has been a threat to international shipping since the second phase of the Somali Civil War in the early 21st century...

. However, by 2010, intensive security operations by Puntland military forces reportedly managed to force out the pirate gangs from their traditional safe havens in the hamlet as well as adjacent settlements, with the pirates now primarily operating from a few towns in the neighboring Galmudug
Galmudug
Galmudug is an autonomous region in central Somalia. It is bordered to its north by the Puntland region, to the west by Ethiopia, and to the south by other regions of Somalia.Galmudug's name is derived from a conflation of the Galguduud and Mudug provinces...

region.
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