Horn of Africa - Piracy Activity Update

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Pirate activity off the Horn of Africa spreads farther north; IMO and UN Secretary Generals introduce the new drive against piracy. The following is a situational map of the events over the last week.

The incidence of piracy has pushed further north during the past 7 days. Although all the vessels reporting pirate attacks managed to evade the hijack attempts, the situation continues to cause consternation throughout the region.

30 January saw 2 attacks;

• On a bulk carrier only 20NM off the Iranian coast and, on the same day,
  
• On a livestock carrier 375NM West of the Maldives.

The attacks occurring on 1 February were widespread, which included:

• Gulf of Aden,105NM South of Salalah, Oman, where a bulk carrier was attacked (IMB Report);
• Somali Basin, 123NM Southeast of Socotra Island (IMB Report) a crude tanker which returned fire;
  
• Indian Ocean, a bulk carrier 230NM Southwest of Minicoy Island, India.

On 2 February, to the Northeast of Socotra Island, a products tanker was attacked, and approximately 60NM off the Pakistan coast, a Panamanian-flagged VLCC was attacked. The attacking mothership was chased and the skiffs destroyed by 2 US warships.
On 3 February, in light of the recent reports of escalation in the violence by pirates, an attack occurred in the Indian Ocean in which no weapons were fired.

The IMO Secretary General, Efthimios Mitropoulos, delivered a speech "Piracy: Orchestrating the Response" at a worshop on piracy, which details the action plan to keep piracy at bay. Meanwhile, this week, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, when officially launching the IMO initiative to drive out piracy, stated "Piracy seems to be outpacing the efforts of the international community to stem it." The aim is to increase pressure at a political level to thereby secure the release of all hostages being held by pirates, and to promote greater coordination between navies. Something OCEANUSLive has advocated for some time by also ensuring the inclusion of the shipping industry through greater information-sharing.

The OCEANUSLive situational map below provides a visual summary of the  pirate attacks that have occurred between 30 January and 4 February 2011. To see receive free copies of the IMB quarterly and annual piracy reports, visit the link.

Vessels are reminded that the coalition forces' warships may not be in the vicinity of a pirate attack, subsequently, it is emphasised that seafarers can greatly reduce their chances of being pirated if they follow precautions as recommended in the Best Management Practices, increasing speed and carrying out evasive manoeuvres is a proven deterrent to piracy attacks.

Vessels are advised to exercise extreme caution when navigating in the vicinity of any reported positions of attacks and maintain maximum CPA with any ship acting suspiciously. Additionally, registration of vessel movement with MSC(HOA) prior to transiting the region is recommended.



Any suspicious activity should be reported to UKMTO in Dubai in the first instance (UKMTO@eim.ae or Telephone+971 50 552 3215) and on entering the UKMTO Voluntary Reporting Area (VRA) bound by Suez,78E and 10S.


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