Saudi-owned crude oil supertanker 'Sirius Star' is seen in this photograph taken in Rotterdam on October 17, 2008.

MOGADISHU, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- Somalis have never been more united on any issue for the past two decades than they are now against the runaway piracy that has been giving growing notoriety to Somali coastal waters so far this year.

Both Somali government officials and opposition leaders alike have condemned the piracy activities off the Horn of Africa coast and vowed to fight the piracy plague that has been wrecking havoc in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean off Somalia while ordinary Somalis have been unanimously expressing their outrage.

"Piracy is a problem not only for the world but also for us Somalis and we should all fight it with all our power," Mohamed Ibrahim, a teacher in Mogadishu, told Xinhua,

The piracy scourge has been growing in Somali waters since 2000but the menace caught the world attention after pirates went on hijacking spree this month with among the abducted ships being a giant Saudi-owned oil tanker, the biggest vessel to be seized by Somali pirates who mainly operate in small port towns in the northeastern semiautonomous Somali region of Puntland.

So far this year nearly 94 ships have been attacked while 38 of them were hijacked by Somali pirates off the Somali coast, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IBM).

The pirates, who claim to be protecting Somali waters from the dumping of industrial waste and the illegalfishing by foreign vessels, did more harm to Somalis than to others, says Maryan Ali,a housewife.

"They (Somali pirates) have hijacked many ships carrying aid for the displaced people of Somalia," Maryan said. "They just think for their selfish interests and are engaged in that criminal activities for it."

Somali territorial waters have been abused by numerous foreign fishing vessel which have been illegally over fishing while other shave used the waters off Somalia as a dumping site for dangerous and internationally banned industrial waste, a thing that also angers many ordinary Somalis but is lacked in the international agenda to deal with piracy.

"What the world is doing is to fight piracy great and commendable but people should never loose sight of the a other great problem facing us Somalis," said Ibrahim. "And that is the unbelievable looting of our marine resources and the dumping of dangerous waste that has been continuing in Somali waters and is still continuing."

The international community has responded positively in tackling piracy off Somali waters with the large presence of international naval forces but many inside Somalia see that part of the efforts being spent in fighting piracy should also be directed at helping the establishment of strong and stable central government in the war-torn Horn of Africa nation.

"Lessons can be learned from the brief rule of the Islamists in2006 when piracy was completely eradicated from Somali waters in a very short time," said Saeed Yusuf, a student in Mogadishu. "A strong central government is a prerequisite for any successful combating of piracy in Somali waters."