MSCHOA confirmed a hijacked vessel as being MV Leila. The Panama-flagged Ro/Ro cargo vessel, with a crew of 15 (some reports state 24 crew), is owned and operated by New Port Cargo & Shipping of Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Reports of a successful hijacking surfaced on Thursday Feb 16, official sources including NATO and UKMTO then confirmed that a merchant vessel had indeed been hijacked by pirates approximately 25nm SE of Sadh (East of Salalah), Oman. Read OCEANUSLive report.
The vessel arrived off the coast of Bargal in the Bari region of the semi-autonomous state of Puntland, according to local officials.
''The pirates and the ship arrived here early this morning. There are 24 crew on the board with different nationalities, some of the crew are from Panama,'' Abdiaziiz Wali, a local official from Bargal, told Somalia Report.
Local residents voiced their concern over the arrival of vessel.
''We have told the pirates in our loudest voice they are not welcome in Bargal, but they have no ears. They are deaf and arrogant. They only know how to do Haraam (forbidden) things. Pirates are not welcome in Bargal. They are thiefs, and their hands should be cut off, as Allah says in the holy book,'' said Osman, a local elder in Bargal. Read more.
NATO Shipping Centre later confirmed that the pirates had carried out the hijack by claiming mechanical problems with their boat and were seeking assistance.
EU NAVFOR combat support warship FGS Berlin responded to a distress signal from a tanker that was under attack by suspected pirates in the Gulf of Aden on Feb 22, reports EUNAVFOR.eu.
On receipt of the radio call the FGS Berlin immediately dispatched her two Seaking helicopters to the area while she closed and when the skiff had been relocated it was stopped and the suspect pirates immediately surrendered to the ship’s boarding team.
The suspects have been transferred to FGS Berlin and further investigations are ongoing.
OCEANUSLive believes the disruption of the PAG is related to an attack on MV North Sea. See Piracy Incidents below.
The London Conference on Somalia released a final communique. Addressing the matter of piracy it "reiterated our determination to eradicate piracy, noting that the problem requires a comprehensive approach on land as well as at sea. We expressed our concern that hostages in Somalia are being held longer and with more use of violence. We welcomed the work of the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia. We also welcomed the success of international military efforts, and remain committed to such efforts with robust rules of engagement and sufficient force generation. We agreed that piracy cannot be solved by military means alone, and reiterated the importance of supporting communities to tackle the underlying causes of piracy, and improving the effective use of Somali coastal waters through regional maritime capacity-building measures. We welcomed those initiatives underway and agreed to coordinate and support such initiatives better. We called for full implementation of the Djibouti Code of Conduct and the adoption of an Exclusive Economic Zone. We look forward to reviewing progress including at the Piracy Conference in the UAE in June." Read more.
As the London Conference on Somalia kicked off today, the Union Jack [Flag] was seen flying in the streets of Mogadishu, alongside the blue star banner of Somalia, on the road linking the presidential palace and Aden Adde international airport.
The area was heavily cordoned off by Transitional Federal Government (TFG) security forces, who prevented civilians from freely accessing the area where the flag was displayed.
Local residents in the employ of the TFG were allegedly instructed by officials from Banadir administration to raise the flag. writes Somalai Report.
Locals are reportedly following the London conference with great interest, actively monitoring developments through the radio and news websites. Read more.
The livelihood of the Somali fishermen who work in the area around Mogadishu is dependent on fishing on a daily basis. They are currently struggling to continue their employment after a series of attacks by warships belonging to international forces patrolling the waters of Indian ocean, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to protect ships from pirate attacks. It appears the warships suspect the fishermen of belonging to or supporting the pirates.
At least eight fishermen are still missing from two fishing vessels which were attacked last week, according to the fishermen in Mogadishu's coastline of Lido. Colleagues in Barawe called the fishermen in Mogadishu and were told that they have found the two boats empty.
Somalia Report speak to Mogadishu fishermen who are shocked by having their fishing vessels being targeted during fishing trips. A fisherman, Saad Madey, told Somalia Report about the consequence of attacks and what the fishers are now planning to do, "Our jobs are in jeopardy recently. There were similar attacks in the past which started once the piracy activities emerged in our oceans, but the degree of danger is now much higher. The situation in the waters of Indian oceans is now appalling. We are still waiting to hear from eight of our friends who have been missing in the ocean for five days now.
We don't know what happen to them, they were on two small fishing boats but we found the boats alone off the shores in Barawe."
Saad said he is concerned about whether there is a future for fishermen in Somalia at all, as a result of the obstacles against the fishing which supports the lives of thousands of Somali fishermen. “We cannot afford to stop fishing because of this kind of aggression, but we are keeping our fingers crossed to see what happens in every next minute. Always vigilant, stay connected and even make sure for the decision to go the sea very carefully. Some boats already went for fishing today, some others are planning to do so, but most of the fishers are not working today, and have not been during the past three days,"; Saad Madey said.
Retired US Lt Colonel Oliver North provides a report for FOX News on the newly formed Puntland Marine Police Force. See video HERE.
A group of pirate attacked the central police station in north Galkayo on Monday night, armed with an assortment of weapons including AK47s and PKM light machine guns. Officials from the semi-autonomous region of Puntland and witnesses told Somalia Report that pirates released one of their colleagues from the station after they had overwhelmed the defending police officers.
After an extensive exchange of gunfire, the pirates entered the police station and released one pirate, who had been arrested earlier in the day by Puntland authorities.
"The pirates were very well armed. They exchanged gunfire with police officers but there were no casualties caused by this incident".
Seychelles President James Michel and President Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo of the Republic of Somaliland have discussed, in a meeting in London today, the transfer of convicted Somali pirates currently in prison in Seychelles, to Somaliland to serve their sentences - Somaliland Press.
The meeting was attended by the British Minister for Africa, Henry Bellingham, Seychelles Minister Home Affairs, Environment, Transport and Energy, Joel Morgan, Seychelles Minister for Foreign Affairs ,Jean-Paul Adam, and the British High Commissioner to Seychelles, Matthew Forbes, the Somaliland Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr Mohamed Andillahi Omar, as well as the UNODC Counter-Piracy Programme Coordinator Alan Cole.
The two leaders signed a joint statement to recognize their joint concern about the serious impact piracy has on the region and on international security, and agreed that it is vital to ensure pirates are brought to justice. Read more.
With its $1-billion economy losing about 4% of GDP to piracy, Seychelles has sought India's help in putting an end to this threat to trade in the Indian Ocean, particularly in prosecuting the sea brigands -Hindustan Times.
Seychelles foreign minister Jean-Paul Adam, who was in India on a three-day visit last week, said in an interview that he had asked his Indian counterpart, SM Krishna, to assist in the trial of pirates and help increase convictions.
"In Seychelles, we have estimated that piracy has cost us 4% of the GDP in terms of growth and this is a terrible cost to our economy...there is a huge opportunity cost," Adam said when asked about the impact of piracy on his country's economy.
He said the next step in the anti-piracy operations is prosecuting the sea brigands to end the impunity they enjoy.
"In Seychelles, currently we have convicted 67 pirates who are serving sentences in our jails and we also have another 18 who are awaiting trial.
"We look forward to working with India and one of the key issues I discussed with the minister (Krishna) is further support that India can give to our judicial system in terms of lawyers and judges, who will be able to help us in effectively prosecuting the pirates," he said.
Seychelles is an archipelago nation with a population of about 85,000, including a sizeable people of Indian origin, in the southern part of the Indian Ocean. It is close to all the anti-piracy action along the East African coast.
Several international groups such as the European Union and Nato, and many individual nations such as India, China and Japan, have deployed their warships in the Gulf of Aden to fight Somali pirates. Most of these nations use Seychelles as a staging post for their operations against the sea brigands.
"In Seychelles, we have really been hit very hard by piracy and it has come out of the blue. It was a shock for us. We have always considered ourselves as a country that is 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from anywhere. Because we literally are. We are in the middle of the Indian Ocean and we thought distance was our protection. But piracy has broken that illusion," Adam said.
The Somali pirates did not have a good year in 2011, statistically speaking at least. According to Nato, they only managed four successful attacks off the coast of the country, and only one in the Gulf of Aden, just further north.
They had more luck in the more distant waters of the Arabian sea, where they captured 19 ships, and attempted to take almost 50 others. And therein lies the worry for all the nations that have supported efforts to rein in criminals who have demanded – and received – millions of dollars in ransoms for the ships and crews they have hijacked - Guardian.
There is a whiff of desperation about the pirates at the moment. They are travelling further afield and taking more risks, after finding the tactics that worked in the past are bearing less fruit, particularly now merchant ships can carry armed security teams that fight machine-gun fire with machine-gun fire. But nobody expects the pirates to go away, or to give up. "Earning $10,000 for a Somali is like winning the lottery," said one western official. "The question is, what are they going to do next? How are they going to adapt?"
There are signs they are already rethinking. Tighter security at sea may have driven some pirates to include kidnappings for ransom on land. In January, US Navy Seals swooped on Somalia's Galmudug region to rescue two kidnapped aid workers. Nine of the pirates were killed.
Military sources say pirates have withdrawn some of their camps and logistical hubs away from the beaches. Further inland they can mingle more easily with local fishermen. This increases the risk of civilian casualties from airstrikes launched by nations contributing to Operation Atalanta, the EU-led mission (EU-Navfor) which is now in its fourth year. That scenario is not as far-fetched as it sounds.
Sources have told the Guardian that in 2010, and again last year, EU-Navfor considered whether airstrikes were feasible, and legal. The answer to both questions was yes. Read more.
Near the top of the highest peak in the Seychelles, with views of the azure Indian Ocean and miles of white-sand beaches, stands a small single-storey prison that is now a far-flung outpost of Britain’s lead role prosecuting Somalia’s pirates - Telegraph.
Within the walls of Montagne Possé, six officers from Her Majesty’s Prison Service are helping to guard 88 men accused of robbery on the high seas.
The prison’s British deputy-superintendent, Will Thurbin, was, until a little over a year ago, Governor of HMP Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight.
Down off the mountain in the archipelago’s capital, two lawyers on secondment from the Crown Prosecution Service in London handle all pirate trials on behalf of the Seychelles’ attorney-general.
More than 5,000 miles from home, these six men and three women are part of a British-funded “conveyor belt” that sees pirates arrested by the Royal Navy, guarded by British prison officers, tried by CPS prosecutors and sentenced to prisons built with British money. Britain has also paid for sophisticated new surveillance equipment for the country’s coast guard and even the Seychellois Police sniffer dogs were trained in Surrey.
Britain has already spent £9 million – more than any other nation, and a quarter of all United Nations Indian Ocean counter-piracy funds – to train prison staff, help upgrade cells or build new prisons, and to improve local lawyers’ expertise in the Seychelles, Somalia and Kenya.
That funding is necessary because under European human rights law and international legal standards, pirates arrested at sea must be transferred to countries that will give them a fair trial and house them in decent prisons.
Without the improvements, existing facilities will become swamped and suspected pirates would simply be released back to Somalia, reinforcing what one British diplomat in the region called “their sense of invulnerability”.
Joel Morgan, the Seychelles’ home affairs minister, told The Daily Telegraph that Britain’s role in helping his country combat piracy was “very significant”. A new intelligence-sharing scheme was agreed yesterday between the two countries, named RAPPICC.
“That came about thanks principally to Britain, and other countries must now make their efforts to join into the scheme so that it truly can achieve the goals it has set out,” he said. “The UK has been a very strong partner in the whole process from our point of view and the British government, its military and its High Commission here have all been exemplary in the way they have come to help.” Read more.
A briefing at European Union Operational HQ showed how combined international forces were dealing with the pirate scourge which we have witnessed expanding in strength and brutality over the past few years. The growing willingness of container ship and bulk freight carriers and tankers to adhere to the latest edition of Best Management Practices is resulting in fewer successful attacks - Handy Shipping Guide.
One of the great fears of those in the shipping industry has been that the arming of merchantmen would result in an escalation of violence in the trade but Rear Admiral Duncan Potts, Operation Commander of the EU Naval Force (EUNAVFOR), who chaired yesterday’s [Feb 20] meeting, expressed the opinion that the fact that vessels were prepared to open fire on pirates from range tended to deter them immediately to search for an easier target. One UK supplier of such protection reported out of around a thousand transits through the danger zone only four ‘incidents’ occurred. An incident is when, in an exchange of fire, four or more shots are aimed toward a suspected pirate vessel.
This may not seem at first to be a particularly harsh response but when one looks at the type of weapon available to the guards, like the snipers rifle shown in our recent story, aimed from the steady platform of a supertanker or a 14,000 TEU box carrier, against the would be pirates RPG being fired from a tiny skiff in a heaving swell with an effective range of around 300 metres, one begins to comprehend that no matter how big the target a merchant vessel makes it begins to seem an unfair contest for once.
The combined forces of law and order have a vast area of ocean to patrol and Admiral Potts compared the twenty five or so vessels policing the area to patrolling Europe with twenty five squad cars [OL Note: See Prosecution Process, right]. This in a region stretching now to 3.2 million square miles where 50% of the world’s container fleet and 3 million barrels of oil pass through every day. At first the combined forces of EU NAVFOR, NATO, the US Led Combined Maritime Force 151 plus individual national efforts from countries like Russia, China and many others would appear too thinly spread to be truly effective but the battle has now taken a very modern turn.
At the Maritime Security Centre – Horn of Africa (MSCHOA) situated in the EUNAVFOR Command Headquarters at Northwood the Mercury communications system which links the disparate forces from so many nations was referred to as ‘Twitter’. The Mercury program gives all stakeholders the ability to talk to each other via Northwood enabling a rapid and coordinated response by both air and sea forces to any alert utilising the closest effective party. This cooperation, known as a flag blind coalition means that the weather, always a primary factor in the trade, has had less influence than in previous years as the Naval forces have extended their reach with a policy of combined intelligence.
Even now only around 70-80% of merchantmen passing through the region actually advise Northwood of their passage under the Best Management Practices (BMP) code despite the simplicity of registration and the extra security it offers. Some companies seem reluctant to reveal details of routes and cargoes and thereby increase the chances of a successful pirate attack. Use of BMP’s which include installation of a protective citadel, often incorporating engine and steerage controls as well as communications, has thwarted many previous attacks with crews hunkering down in relative safety to await rescue. Read more.
Foreign navies and armed guards on boats have badly dented the cutthroat capabilities of marauding Somali pirates, but ending the scourge requires land-based solutions, analysts warn, according to AFP
Somalia's pirates remain a fearsome force prowling far across the Indian Ocean seizing ships for ransom, costing the world billions of dollars each year and now branching out to increasing land-based attacks.
"Success rates have plummeted, and pirates have a hard time capturing ships," said Stig Jarle Hansen, a Norwegian academic and Somalia expert, noting increased assaults by foreign navies on vessels used as pirate "motherships."
One reason for the decline in successful attacks has been the increased use by shipping of armed guards and other security measures, said J. Peter Pham, of the Atlantic Council think tank.
"Most of the credit actually belongs to the shipping industry... whose adoption of defensive "best practices" and increased deployment of private armed security has effectively hardened vessels against seizure," Pham said.
But as successful attacks decline, ransom prices have risen: the average pay climbed to $5 million in 2011 from $4 million in 2010, according to the US-based Oceans Beyond Piracy monitoring group.
Somali attacks cost the world nearly $7 billion in 2011, including more than $2 billion for military operations, armed guards and equipment to protect ships, the group estimated in a report earlier this month.
Multiple pirate gangs hold a grim trophy haul of at least 34 vessels and over 400 hostages, according to the monitoring group Ecoterra, many seized by the use of small skiffs, grappling hooks and rocket-propelled grenades.
However, while such "aggressive levels" of foreign naval patrols have thwarted attacks, such tactics provide no long-term solution, said Rashid Abdi, a long-time Somalia expert.
"There has been a significant scaling up of these naval operations, but that in itself is no comfort," said Abdi.
"The counter-piracy naval patrols in Somalia may just be simply displacing the problem."
Late in 1815, ten British warships arrived off Algiers, armed with dozens of cannon — and orders to use nothing else to negotiate with the Barbary coast corsairs holed up in the citadel-port. The British and their Dutch allies suffered 141 dead — but killed more than 2,000 pirates, destroyed their fleet and levelled their fortifications. Barbary pirates continued to prey on merchant traffic until 1830, when the French occupied Algiers, but their backbone was broken - The Hindu..
For years now, the world's merchant seamen have been fantasising about a similar solution to the grim tsunami of piracy that is washing through the Indian Ocean.
Even though 30 navies are now operating in the Indian ocean — an unprecedented multinational effort that has brought together countries as diverse as the United States and Iran, as well as India and Pakistan — attacks by Somali groups actually rose to 237 last year, from 219 in 2010.
Last year alone, 802 crew were taken hostage and eight killed; 159 sailors are still captive in Somalia, waiting for fleet-owners to cough up ransoms that could range up to $4 million for the 10 ships now held by pirates.
Failed by governments, merchant seamen have increasingly turned to using force to protect themselves. Last week's shooting of two unarmed Kerala fishermen by naval marines stationed on board an Italian tanker has underlined the risks of allowing ill-trained, and often panicked, personnel to use lethal force. There is little point, though, to blaming merchant crews for seeking to defend themselves unless governments can find ways to protect them.
The solution to high-seas piracy lies on dry land — and will need means more complex and subtle than the cannon that levelled the corsairs in 1815. Read more
A Counter-Piracy Messaging and Communications Workshop organised this week in London by Oceans Beyond Piracy (One Earth Future Foundation) with the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the US Department of State examined how counter-piracy messaging in Somalia (dissuading Somalis from becoming pirates) and to the international community (encouraging multi-stakeholder support) both work, separately and together.
Up for discussion were multiple messaging, (lack of) co-operation, strategic messaging and a coordinated approach. Read more - Safety4Sea.
In 2011, pirates made some $170 million in ransom money for hijacked vessels and their crews. That figure represents an increase since 2010, when ransoms paid amounted to over $110 million, according to UNODC.
Ransom money is increasingly flowing into the legal financial system, while the laundering of the proceeds of piracy is causing consumer prices to rise steeply in the Horn of Africa and the surrounding area.
Briefing the Security Council on the situation in Somalia, UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov said: "Piracy money is also being reinvested into criminal activities that are not limited to piracy. Drugs, weapons and alcohol smuggling, as well as human trafficking, also benefit from the proceeds of piracy."
UNODC is working with other United Nations agencies and Member States to help to increase awareness of illicit money flows linked to piracy, in order to tackle what is a growing problem. Central to its Counter-Piracy Programme is its support for financial intelligence units and law enforcement agencies in East Africa and the Horn of Africa. UNODC is working with the World Bank and INTERPOL on a joint report on illicit financial flows linked to piracy, which will published at the end of this year.
The Counter-Piracy Programme is providing support to East African countries willing to prosecute piracy, in particular through training programmes for police, prosecutors, judges and prison personnel in Kenya, Seychelles, Mauritius and, where security conditions allow, Somalia.
According to a review conducted by UNODC, 1,116 young Somali men faced criminal proceedings for piracy in 20 countries around the world, while 688 were dealt with in the region. Read more.
India has said the solution to the problem of piracy off the coast of Somalia should come from institutions within Somalia, as it asked the African country to bring in a national anti-piracy legislation and for investigation and prosecution of suspected pirates - Deccan Chronicle.
"Piracy off the coast of Somalia is primarily a Somali problem and the solution should be Somali-owned and supported by the Somali institutions. Any imposition of external solutions will not work in the long run," India's deputy Permanent Representative Ambassador Manjeev Singh Puri said at the UN Security Council on the situation in Somalia on Thursrday. Read more.
SOS SaveOurSeafarers has issued the following statement following a conference in London on Somali piracy, organized by the UK’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office, held at the London headquarters of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) - Insurance Journal.
Giles Heimann, Chairman of the Group stated: “We welcome the acknowledgement of the importance of the continuing partnership between the shipping industry, the naval forces and governments, and their ongoing commitment in tackling the issue of piracy off the coast of Somalia. We look to reinforce these relationships.
“The conference also highlighted the successful co-ordinated naval operations in the region, which, combined with industry self-protection measures, have helped reduce the number of successful pirate hijackings despite continued increasingly violent pirate attacks.
“The conference’s recognition of the economic and human cost of piracy and the suffering of seafarers echoes our campaign’s objectives as we try to raise awareness of the consequences of Somali piracy, and attempt to stir up more political will. We also welcome the conference’s acknowledgement of the underlying causes of Somali piracy, and of the need to stabilize and strengthen internal governance within the country, and to strengthen judicial prosecution capacity in the region in order to bring pirates to justice.”
SOS SaveOurSeafarers brings together 30 different organizations from the international maritime industry “to raise awareness of the human and economic cost of piracy using approaches to politicians and industrial leaders at the highest level,” the bulletin explained. “It began operations in March 2011. Over 100,000 visits to its website from 188 countries and over 31,300 letters have been sent to governments worldwide.
It focuses its efforts on resolving the piracy problem off Somalia; to see piracy deterred, defeated and eradicated, and to “stop seafarers being tortured and murdered.”
Seychelles President winning for the Indian Ocean - OCEANUSLive
London Conference on SomaliaMuch has been said and covered on the London Conference on Somalia held on Feb 23. Instead of repeating the various speeches and messages, a few of links are inlcuded to enable some of the details to be reviewed.
UK Prime Minister, David Cameron speech - BBC News. or via UKinSomalia HERE.
US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, speech - BBC News.
UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, speech - BBC News
Somalia President "We are scared of tomorrow" - BBC News..
IMO Chief welcomes the conference - HERE.
List of conference attendees - FCO.gov.
The Final Communique on the conference - Somalia Report.
International community targets pirate kingpins; UK to provide director and fund construction of new Regional Anti-Piracy Prosecutions Intelligence Co-ordination Centre (RAPPICC) - UKinSomalia.
Inside Story - Saving Somalia: A wasted effort? [video] Al Jazeera.