The goal, pushed by major powers, was to begin reining in the growing threat to commercial activity in one of the world’s most important shipping lanes. In its December meeting, the council authorized governments that are already carrying out naval operations in Somali waters to possibly extend their anti-piracy efforts to land and air. But UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed that Somalia’s piracy problem cannot be divorced from the need to forge a comprehensive peace agreement for the country. As Dumisani Kumalo, South Africa’s UN representative, told an October council meeting, piracy in Somalia is “part of the larger problem of the lack of peace and stability.”

Piracy, moreover, is not limited to Somali waters. Weak coastal states located near shipping choke points (where traffic is slow) are the most likely havens for piracy, says Kerstin Petretto, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. That description fits the waters off Somalia and a few other parts of the world, including West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea, which saw 40 pirate attacks from January to November 2008.

But piracy off Somalia is more common. Since the International Maritime Organization (IMO) began keeping records in 1984, there have been more than 440 reported acts of piracy off the Somali coast. “Of these, 120 took place in 2008 alone,” IMO Secretary-General Efthimios Mitropoulos told the Security Council in November. More than 40 ships and 600 seafarers have been seized. Pirates have collected an estimated $120 mn in ransom.

Farther and more brazen

Somali pirates are also sailing increasingly farther into the Indian Ocean from their bases in Puntland, in northern Somalia. One vessel, the Sirius Star, a supertanker carrying two million barrels of oil, was hijacked 450 nautical miles (833 kilometres) southeast of Kenya’s port, Mombasa, farther south than any previous attack. “This incident is significant on two counts,” says International Maritime Bureau (IMB) Director Pottengal Mukundan. “Firstly, this is the largest vessel to have been hijacked. Secondly, the distance from the shore would suggest a highly organized operation – this is not mere opportunism.” The IMB is a division of the International Chamber of Commerce and operates a 24-hour piracy reporting centre.

Rising pirate attacks led to a 12-15 per cent rise in insurance premiums in 2008 and a hike from $500 to $20,000 of the special risk insurance for each ship passing through the Gulf of Aden, which skirts Somali waters. Ships can go around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope to Europe instead. But the Gulf of Aden route, which serves about 20,000 vessels annually and carries over 12 per cent of all the oil transported by sea, is faster and cheaper. Nor is the Cape route totally safe. The Sirius Star was using the Cape route when it was hijacked.

‘A perfect environment’

With very little functioning government, long, isolated beaches and a population that is desperate and accustomed to war, “Somalia is a perfect environment for piracy to thrive,” states an October 2008 report by Chatham House, a UK-based think tank.

Within Puntland, the autonomous area in Somalia where most pirate attacks originate, the hijackings are seen as an important source of income, providing jobs and opportunities for hundreds. Fuel suppliers and merchants equip the pirates’ boats.

African Union forces escort a cargo ship released by Somali pirates.
Many pirates started as fishermen. As Ms. Petretto points out, Somalia’s fishing waters used to be a source of community income. But over time they attracted many European and Asian fishing vessels, whose exploitation depleted fish stocks and possibly prompted residents’ “sense of justification in targeting foreign ships.”

Successful anti-piracy efforts do exist. Until 2004, the Malacca Straits, a narrow passage through the waters of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, was the world’s most pirate-prone region, with 103 attacks that year. The three countries mounted daily joint air and sea patrols, eventually reducing the attacks to just 32 between January and September 2008.

Following a June Security Council authorization for naval powers to conduct similar patrols off Somalia, warships from more than a dozen nations, including NATO and European Union members as well as Russia and India, have taken turns policing the waters. Consequently, successful hijackings fell from 53 per cent of total attacks to 31 per cent between August and October. But the area is too vast – an estimated 6.5 mn square kilometres – to police effectively.

Limited capabilities

African countries themselves lack the resources to contribute to such an effort. They do not “have the money for fuel, never mind the hardware, to run adequate surveillance at sea or port security,” argues Chris Trelawny, IMO’s chief of maritime security.

To be effective against piracy, Africa’s coastal countries would need “effective early warning and intelligence services, credible deterrent and reaction forces … high mobility … and the ability to sustain operations for long periods,” says Len le Roux of the South African Institute of Security Studies. Those are precisely the capabilities “sorely lacking in Africa.”

Oil-rich Nigeria, in whose waters most piracy in West Africa occurs, has the best navy in the region. But in 2005 its former commander told the local media that “in its present state” it could not protect the nation’s territorial waters because it was “ill equipped and underfunded.” The waters off Cameroon and Angola are also prone to piracy, but their navies are even less equipped.

South Africa is in a stronger position, and its air force patrols the coast daily. But air patrols can easily miss a ship or the speedboats favoured by pirates. And South Africa does not have a satellite-based security system, which could monitor ships passing within 1,500 km of the coast.

Worse, says Mr. le Roux, regional solutions are lacking. He notes that the African Union’s arrangements to establish standby peacekeeping forces do not address maritime threats. Those plans, he says, leave “the impression of an Africa without a coastline or maritime zone, let alone broader maritime interests such as trade and resources.”

Regional approach

International cooperation is helping West African countries better handle maritime security. The US and European countries are working with local navies to enhance their capacities and engage in joint policing of territorial waters. Such partnerships are partly driven by the area’s strategic interest as an oil-exporting region, as well as concern over the recent use of West African waters by traffickers of cocaine and immigrants to Europe.

But naval training, better equipment and law enforcement will not be enough, says a 2005 report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). It argues that strengthening the “legitimacy of governments,” “tackling corruption” and addressing endemic poverty will be vital in denying criminals an environment favourable to illegal activities. In Somalia, the Chatham House report notes, although piracy has been a problem since the collapse of government in 1991, it almost vanished during the six-month rule of the Islamic Courts Union in 2006. “This indicates that a functioning government in Somalia is capable of controlling piracy,” the report argues.

UNODC presented a number of concrete proposals to a December 2008 UN-sponsored meeting in Nairobi on tackling piracy. At the meeting, 40 countries agreed to trace, track and freeze assets of those who back Somali pirates. “Regional cooperation is essential,” UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in mid-December.

As well as going after financial flows, the proposed measures call for countries in the region to cooperate in placing law-enforcement officials aboard warships operating in Somali waters and to bring captured pirates to justice in local courts, a system that has been successful in the Caribbean. December’s Security Council resolution called on Somalia’s neighbours to establish such a network of “ship riders,” as the officials are known, and to set up a contact group for gathering intelligence on pirates.

Nevertheless, African speakers at the December Security Council meeting strongly argued that action to tackle piracy must not be taken at the cost of resolving Somalia’s broader peace, security and humanitarian challenges (www.allafrica.com).

www.MaritimeJobSearch.com | Shipping, Transportation, and Engineering Jobs

The statement comes a day after a negotiator for the pirates said a $3m (£1.95m) ransom had been paid.

A plane was seen apparently dropping money by parachute onto the ship, which is carrying two million barrels of oil.The owners expressed relief that the 25-strong crew, including two Britons, was safe after their two-month ordeal.

“We are very relieved to know that all the crew members are safe and I am glad to say that they are all in good health and high spirits,” said a statement released by Saleh K’aki, president of Vela International Marine.

“This has been a very trying time for them and certainly for their families. We are very happy to report to their families that they will be on their way home soon.”

The UK Foreign Office said it was ready to assist the two Britons on board when they reach land – chief engineer Peter French, from County Durham, and James Grady, from Renfrewshire.

Drowned pirates

The Sirius Star was carrying two million barrels of oil – a quarter of Saudi Arabia’s daily output – when it was seized 450 nautical miles south-east of Kenya in November.

The current location of the tanker is unclear.

Five of the pirates reportedly drowned while making off with their share of the ransom money after their skiff was hit by high seas.

Somali pirates have also released an Iranian-chartered vessel seized off the coast of Yemen in November, Iranian media reported.

The Delight, which was seized on its way to Iran from Germany carrying 36,000 tonnes of wheat, was freed on Friday night, reports said.

A surge in piracy in the busy Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean shipping lanes has sent insurance prices soaring, made some owners choose to go round South Africa instead of through the Suez Canal, and brought an unprecedented deployment of warships to the region (source: bbc.co.uk).

The attack on the Sirius Star, three times the mass of a US aircraft carrier and capable of carrying 2m barrels of crude oil, is the most audacious in recent times.

A large, Saudi-owned crude oil carrier Sirius Star has been captured by pirates in the Arabian Sea. The tanker was attacked 800 east of Mombasa, Kenya Photograph: Caters News Agency Ltd

It took place 520 miles south-east of Mombasa, Kenya, more than twice as far out to sea as other recent attacks on shipping, the US navy said. The International Chamber of Shipping said it believed the ship was 800 miles east of Mombasa when attacked.Reports earlier this afternoon on Arabiya television suggesting the crew had been freed could not be confirmed. The US Navy said it understood the pirates were holding the tanker “near an anchorage point” of the town of Eyl, Somalia, which has become a haven for pirates.

The Saudi- vessel was heading for the US via the Cape of Good Hope. There are 25 crew on board, including those from Britain, Croatia, the Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia.

“We are evaluating the situation,” Lieutenant Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the US Fifth Fleet, said, when asked whether the navy was taking action to rescue the tanker.

He said he had spoken to those on board by telephone today from the headquarters in Bahrain. The vessel was hijacked on Saturday.

“Sirius Star is three times the size of a US aircraft carrier and shows how they are successfully expanding their operations,” Christensen said. He added the operation demonstrated a new level of sophistication as the attackers had to scale the 10-metre high sides of the vessel. Previous attacks have occurred within 200 nautical miles of land.

“We don’t know the condition of the crew on board or the nature of the pirates’ demands. In cases like this what we typically see is a demand for money from the ship owners but we haven’t had that yet,” he said.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office confirmed that two of those on board are British, but could not give any details of their role on the ship. He said: “We are seeking more information on the incident.”

Andrew Linington, from Nautilus UK, the seafarers union, said the British nationals on board were thought to be a master, and a chief engineer.

“This has come as a massive shock. It’s the biggest ship that’s ever been taken, and it’s a long way away from the area, which up until now has been regarded as the dangerous region; where the previous attacks have been,” he said. “Tankers of this size are usually safe from attacks. It’s a worrying escalation.”

Pirates, often based in Somalia, have made shipping routes off east Africa among the most dangerous in the world.

The route around southern Africa is a main thoroughfare for fully laden supertankers from the Gulf, the world’s biggest oil exporting region.

The Sirius Star is owned by a Dubai shipping firm, Vela International Marine Ltd, a subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, the state-owned national oil company of Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil exporter, sending around 7m barrels per day (bpd) to global markets.

The very large crude carrier (VLCC) was sailing under a Liberian flag and is carrying an unspecified amount of oil. Built by Daewoo in South Korea, the 318,000-tonne, 330-metre-long vessel made its maiden voyage in March this year.

The ship is the largest vessel to come under attack by pirates in the area, a US Navy spokesman said.

Piracy in the Gulf of Aden, between Yemen and Somalia, has more than doubled in 2008, with assailants using GPS navigational aids and satellite phones to find potential targets, according to a report last month by the international affairs think tank, Chatham House. It warned of the danger a tanker could come under attack.

“As pirates become bolder and use ever more powerful weaponry a tanker could be set on fire, sunk or forced ashore, any of which could result in an environmental catastrophe that would devastate marine and bird life for years to come,” it said.

“The pirates’ aim is to extort ransom payments and to date that has been their main focus. However, the possibility that they could destroy shipping is very real.”

Vela International Marine Limited is the sixth largest VLCC-owner in the world, employing 1,100 people worldwide. It owns and operates a fleet of 24 tankers.

Last week, British commandos killed two suspected pirates who tried to seize a Danish ship in the Gulf of Aden during an operation involving a Royal Navy and a Russian warship (source: guardian.co.uk).