Source: AFP
The audacious attack in December brought disturbing features to the piracy that once terrorized global shipping off east Africa: a hijacked cargo ship, its crew taken to Somalia and disappeared.
The successful capture of the foreign vessel was the first by Somali pirates since 2017 and follows a surge in armed maritime attacks around the Horn of Africa not seen in years.
Analysts warn that Somali piracy is nowhere near the threat it was in 2011, when navies around the world had to deploy warships to defeat the scourge and restore order at sea.
However, this recent uptick in piracy activity has raised further concerns about maritime and shipping security at a time when critical trade corridors off Yemen have come under siege.
The UK’s Merchant Marine Operations, which monitors piracy, has recorded six incidents off the coast of Somalia since mid-December, ranging from approaches by crews armed with machine guns and rocket launchers to successful hijackings.
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The MICA Center, a French maritime security agency, noted the “possible resurgence” of piracy off Somalia in a 2023 report. It recorded nine attacks that year, describing the number as “novel”.
Many of these incidents occurred off Puntland, Somalia’s historical hub of piracy. The northern state wraps around the Horn of Africa and has long coastlines on the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
Eric Jaslin, Director of the MICA Center, said the increase occurred “almost simultaneously” as the Yemen-based Houthi rebels began targeting boats bound for Israel in retaliation for the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.
“Almost at the same time, we started to see a phenomenon of anti-divos piracy off the coast of Puntland,” he said, referring to the traditional wooden fishing boats that ply the Indian Ocean.
‘Hunting Ground’
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Several ship hijackings last year raised the possibility that Somalia’s dormant crews were “retooling” for attacks further out to sea, said Timothy Walker, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS).
Somali pirates have traditionally sought to capture a “mother ship” — a motorized dhow or fishing trawler — capable of traveling longer distances where larger vessels can be targeted.
Since the Houthi attacks, many cargo ships have slowed hundreds of miles out to sea to await instructions on whether to proceed into the Red Sea, Walker noted.
“It creates a hunting ground,” he said.
Those ships have become particularly vulnerable as some foreign navies have relocated from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea in response to Houthi attacks, analysts say.
Local conditions in Somalia have also allowed the pirates to regroup.
State elections in Puntland in December and January meant some coast guard positions were vacated, said Omar Mahmood, a researcher at the International Crisis Group.
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“These two reasons — onshore and offshore — provided an opportunity for these criminal networks that have always been there,” he told AFP.
The Puntland Marine Police did not respond to AFP requests for comment.
Fishing vendettas
In Eyl, a traditional pirate stronghold on Puntland’s east coast, locals say fishing trawlers from Southeast Asia, Iran and Europe plundering the seas off Somalia have angered coastal communities.
“The reason why pirates are re-emerging is because of widespread illegal fishing on the coast,” said Ahmed Abdi Nuh, an elder from Eyl.
These attacks could constitute piracy by global definitions and have occurred time and time again, experts say.
“A lot of the justification for pirates being caught in the past was a kind of Robin Hood argument — that they were actually preventing illegal fishing,” Walker said.
Between January 29 and February 2 this year, four fishing vessels were freed by the Indian and Seychelles navies after being hijacked, sometimes more than 800 nautical miles (1,500 km) from shore.
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“The further away from Somalia, the less chance there is of a connection to a fishing scenario,” said Hans Tino Hansen, CEO of Danish maritime intelligence and security firm Risk Intelligence.
Interception
Analysts have played down fears that the bad days of Somali piracy have returned, stressing that the presence of foreign sailors had deterred once-crime at sea.
The overall number of piracy attacks has fallen sharply since a peak in 2011, when internal chaos in Somalia and the absence of a coast guard allowed pirates to hijack merchant ships and hold crews for ransom.
Since then, a multinational naval force from as far away as Japan, the United Kingdom and Brazil has brought strength to patrols around Somalia, dampening this once-lucrative trade.
Compared to the early 2000s, navies have advanced systems to detect piracy and merchant ships are more aware of the risks and familiar with security procedures.
Before the hijacking of the Maltese-flagged bulk carrier MV Ruen on December 14, no cargo ship had been successfully boarded by Somali pirates since 2017 and before that in 2012.
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Mahmoud said the recent uptick in piracy activity was “more likely to be a flare-up than a full resurgence”.
In Eyl, the locals were also dubious.
“There are warships patrolling the sea. I don’t think any pirate in his right mind would take the chance,” said Ahmed Siyad, a fisherman in Eyl.
Source: AFP