By 2019, the International Maritime Bureau reported no successful hijackings in the Greater Gulf of Aden. Three international naval efforts, and industry-wide efforts to make ships harder to attack and easier to defend, helped reduce the threat – as did improved local government on land, such as enhanced security and better health and education services. Somali pirates like those portrayed in the 2013 Tom Hanks movie “ Captain Phillips” spent five years regularly hijacking large commercial vessels. Modern sea piracy often involves pirates in small fast boats approaching and boarding larger, slower-moving ships to rob them of cargo – such as car parts, oil, crew valuables, communication equipment – or to seize the ship and crew for ransom.īeginning in 2008, the greater Gulf of Aden area off the coast of East Africa became the most dangerous waters in the world for pirate attacks. AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh Counter-piracy successes In a photo from 2012, masked Somali pirate Hassan stands near a Taiwanese fishing vessel that washed up on a Somali shore after the pirates were paid a ransom and released the crew. As a scholar of sea piracy, I worry that the coronavirus pandemic may make piracy even more of a problem in the coming months and years. Already, the first three months of 2020 have seen a 24% increase in pirate attacks and attempted attacks, over the same period in 2019. Worldwide in 2019, there were fewer attacks and attempted attacks on ships than there had been in 25 years.īut as the Guayaquil attack hints, pirates may be getting more active. Only a few short years ago the international community was celebrating the end of maritime piracy. Ships moored along the port’s quays or, like the Fouma, transiting its narrow river passages are easy prey for local criminal gangs. It’s the seventh-busiest port in Latin America, handling most of Ecuador’s agricultural and industrial imports and exports. Nobody was harmed.Įcuador isn’t exactly a hot spot of global piracy, but armed robbers regularly attack ships in and around the port of Guayaquil. They fired warning shots toward the ship’s bridge, boarded the ship and opened several shipping containers, removing unknown items before escaping in two speedboats. In early April, eight armed raiders boarded the container ship Fouma as it entered the port of Guayaquil, Ecuador.
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