Global pirate attacks so far this year have already exceeded the number recorded last year, and attackers are much more likely to use firearms, a maritime watchdog said yesterday.
“The increase in attacks is directly attributed to heightened piracy activity off the Somali Coast ... and in the Gulf of Aden,” the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said in a report.
Incidents off the coast of lawless Somalia rose to 47 during the first nine months of this year from 12 in the same period a year ago, while in the Gulf of Aden there were 100 attacks compared to 51.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Globally, there were 306 incidents reported to the IMB’s piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur for the first nine months of the year, compared with 293 for the same period last year, and just below the record of 344 set in 2003.
However, the IMB said the rate of successful hijackings had dropped substantially this year, to an average of one in nine vessels targeted by pirates compared with one in 6.4 last year.
“In 2008 there were a lot of successful hijackings but in 2009, because of increased naval patrols, although the number of attacks has increased their success in getting the ships has decreased,” reporting center chief Noel Choong said.
However, the report showed that the number of incidents in which guns were used had risen by more than 200 percent so far this year, indicating that attackers were more determined than ever.
The IMB said Somali pirates have also extended their reach, “threatening not only the Gulf of Aden and the East Coast of Somalia but also the southern region of the Red Sea, the Bab el Mandab Straits and the East Coast of Oman.”
Since last year a flotilla of foreign warships has been patrolling the Gulf of Aden, one of the busiest maritime trade routes on the globe, which has been plagued by piracy in recent years.
“The naval vessels operating off the coast of Somalia continue to play a critical role in containing the piracy threat,” IMB director Pottengal Mukundan said.
“It is vital that regions in Somalia such as Puntland continue to take firm action in investigating and prosecuting the pirates. This will be a far better deterrent against Somali pirates than prosecution and punishment in a foreign country,” he said.
Elsewhere, the IMB said, Nigeria remains an “area of high concern” and that while 20 attacks had been recorded so far this year, the real figure was likely to be twice as high.
Chittagong port in Bangladesh has also seen a rise in attacks, with 12 this year compared with nine last year.
Also, “the South China Sea has once again proven to be an area of concern and enhanced risk, with 10 incidents reported so far in 2009. This is the highest recorded number of incidents in the corresponding period over the last five years,” the IMB said.
The watchdog said that globally, 114 vessels were boarded and 34 hijacked during the first nine months of the year. A total of 661 crew members were taken hostage, six were killed and eight are missing.
Attacks fell in the third quarter of the year compared with the first half of the year, but the IMB said the decrease was because of monsoon conditions that make the seas too rough for pirates to operate in their small boats.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS