The capture of the U.S. flagged containership Maersk Alabama a couple of months ago suddenly projected the reality of Somali piracy onto the front pages of newspapers around the world, and for a week or so television news programs were full of breathless breaking news reports on the attack, the crew’s resistance, the heroic actions of the ship’s master and his dramatic rescue by U.S. special forces snipers. Of course, these sorts of news stories have a short shelf-life, and you would think the problem has gone away.Not true. In fact, in spite of the growing fleet of naval ships deployed into the region, piracy is still a daily threat for ships sailing off the Horn of Africa. Lloyd’s List, the London-based daily newspaper of the international maritime industry, cites a report from Risk Intelligence, a security research company, predicting that there will be more than 300 attacks by year end, up from 141 in 2008. That’s nearly one per day! The Copenhagen-based company has calculated a success rate of 23% for pirate attacks. The report notes that pirate mother ships are operating further out into the Indian Ocean and Middle East Gulf, making the operating area for patrolling warships virtually impossible to respond in a timely fashion when attacks occur.
The ships and crews of the hijacked vessels are freed on the payment of ransom to the pirates, usually after four to six months of captivity. Ransom payments range from a few hundred thousand dollars for a tug/barge to more than a million for a loaded cargo ship.
The crews of cargo and passenger ships are unarmed, and once the pirates succeed in getting aboard the ship from their speedboats they can take control of the ship in 15 minutes or less – before a naval ship or military helicopter can get to the scene. In general, the best defense against pirates is to transit danger zones in daylight and to maintain the highest possible speed while taking evasive maneuvers to keep the pirate boats from making up alongside. According to the International Maritime Bureau, 72% of attacks were circumvented by such “aggressive actions” by the ships’ masters.
One of the biggest problems facing the joint naval forces patrolling the area is what to do with pirates when they are captured. International law is fuzzy when it comes to procedures for prosecuting pirates. Somalia, of course, is totally without a working legal system, and the nations operating the warships have their own rules and laws to consider, making it very difficult to try them in a court of law. As a result, when they capture a pirate mother ship or speedboat, they remove the arms and ammunition, sink the vessel and then release the crew ashore.
If you’re interested in keeping up with the latest piracy news, you can find a wealth of information at The International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Center (www.icc-ccs.org). 
Comments for Piracy On The Rise