The Work of UNODC Maritime Crime Programme
THE UNODC Maritime Crime Programme has produced a March 2014 bulletin which focuses on the UNODC’s existing work in addressing maritime crime in East Africa and also launches a new programme in West Africa.
The bulletin reports that work continues in East Africa to ensure that Somali nationals apprehended at sea and charged with piracy receive a fair and efficient trial.
With the support of the European Union’s MASE programme, how the transfer of suspected pirates from warships to regional prosecuting states is done in practice and ensuring those states are supported through the investigation and trial process.
The programme coordinator, Alan Cole, says the UNODC’s obligations do not end there: the bulletin also explains how those Somalis who choose to serve their prison sentences back home are transferred and how those who have completed their sentence or who are not prosecuted are repatriated back to their families in Somalia.
UNODC has a mandate to support the victims of crime and in context of piracy in East Africa, they focus their work on the hostages.
The Hostage Support Programme shares details in the bulletin of its sensitive and harrowing work in support of more than 700 men who have been held hostage in Somalia.
Cole continues, that just as piracy in East Africa is on the decline, and UNODC along with the rest of the international community, starts to look at the suppression of wider maritime crime in the Indian Ocean, so in West Africa, the increased instances of piracy and armed robbery at sea, it looks at how UNODC is taking forward its programming in West Africa and supporting regional states to address a criminal activity which will be no less destructive than piracy off Somalia has been if it is not addressed promptly and effectively.
UNODC’s first step in initiating regional cooperation and dialogue in this area was to convene a workshop on the “Legal Facilitation of Gulf of Guinea Maritime Law Enforcement” in Ghana in December 2013, bringing together experts to identify challenges in the maritime security sector. Law enforcement and legal officials from Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon and Sao Tome and Principe, along with representatives from the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the International Maritime Organization were in attendance.
Editor’s note: the figures stated in the number of hostages held in Somalia are those prior to the freeing of 11 crew from MV Albedo.
The figures include the number of hostages from 6 dhows/fishing vessels at sea used as motherships between Oct 2010 and Apr 2013 totalling 41, and other kidnap victims from Kenya, USA and UK (2 Kenyan aid workers recently released) held by Al Shabaab and Pirate Groups.
Download the latest bulletin.
If you would like to know more about the work that UNODC is doing in support of piracy prosecutions, visit UNODC Website
Programme Coordinator: alan.cole@unodc.org
Maritime Crime Programme
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Regional Office in East Africa
UNON, Gigiri, Block X, Room 212
PO Box 30218 - 00100 Nairobi, Kenya +254 20 762 1890
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