HISTORY OF PIRACY:
The first recorded incidence of piracy dates back to as early as the 14th century BC when Sea Peoples threatened the Aegean and Mediterranean voyages. During the period of 258-264 AD, the Gothic pirates looted the towns along the Black Sea coast and Aegean coast, and reached to Cyprus and Crete.
WHAT STARTED PIRACY?
The era of Piracy in the Caribbean began in the 1500s and phased out in the 1830s after the navies of the nations of Europe and N.America with colonies in the Caribbean began combating pirates. The period during which pirates were most successful was from the 1660s to 1730s.
SOMALIA PIRACY:
Our company sister vessel M.T.Symrini a double hulled Crude oil tanker with a Deadweight 149999 MT and having a total 26 crew members was hijacked by Somailan Pirates on 10th May 2012 off Gulf of Aden while she was proceeding to Balikpapan, Indonesia from Ceyhan,Turkey. She was released after 10 months after paying a ransom of 35,000 USD.
Red Area:-
Gulf of Aden, where piracy activities are more. So there is an Internationally Recommended Traffic Corridor (IRTC) for ships coming from/Going to Red sea, as this area is being tracked by Euorpean Naval forces, Indian Navy and other Navies, patrolling continuously in this region. Vessels intend to transit to and fro through Red sea and Gulf of Aden has to register their names through UK Maritime based at Dubai.
Somali pirates following a ship in skiff.
HISTORY OF SOMALIAN PIRACY:
In the early 1980s, prior to the outbreak of the civil war in Somalia, the Somali Ministry of Fisheries and the Coastal Development Agency (CDA) launched a development program focusing on the establishment of agricultural and fishery cooperatives for artisanal fishermen. It also received significant foreign investment funds for various fishery development projects, as the Somali fishing industry was considered to have a lot of potential owing to its unexploited marine stocks. The government at this time permitted foreign fishing through official licensing or joint venture agreements, forming two such partnerships in the Iraqi-Somali Siadco and Italian-Somali Somital ventures. After the collapse of the central government in the ensuing civil war, the Somali Navy disbanded. With Somali territorial waters undefended, foreign fishing trawlers began illegally fishing on the Somali seaboard and ships began dumping industrial and other waste off the Somali coast. This led to erosion of the fish stock and local fishermen started to band together to try to protect their resources. An escalation began, leading to weapons being used and tactics such as taking over a foreign ship until their owners paid a ransom. After seeing the profitability of ransom payments, some financiers and former militiamen later began to fund pirate activities, splitting the profits evenly with the pirates. In most of the hijackings, the pirates have not harmed their prisoners.
Combined Task Force 150, a multinational coalition task force, subsequently took on the role of fighting piracy off the coast of Somalia by establishing a Maritime Security Patrol Area (MSPA) within the Gulf of Aden. However, many foreign naval vessels chasing pirates were forced to break off when the pirates entered Somali territorial waters. To address this, in June 2008, following a letter from the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to the President of the UN Security Council requesting assistance for the TFG’s efforts to tackle acts of piracy off the coast of Somalia, the UN Security Council unanimously passed a declaration authorizing nations that have the consent of the Transitional Federal Government to enter Somali territorial waters to deal with pirates. On the advice of lawyers, the Royal Navy and other international naval forces have often released suspected pirates that they have captured because, although the men are frequently armed, they have not been caught engaging in acts of piracy and have thus not technically committed a crime. Due to improved anti-piracy measures the success of piracy acts on sea decreased dramatically by the end of 2011 with only four vessels hijacked in the last quarter versus 17 in the last quarter of the preceding year. In response, pirates resorted to increased hostage taking on land The government of the autonomous Puntland region has also made progress in combating piracy, evident in interventions by its maritime police force (PMPF).
In part to further curtail piracy activity, the London Somalia Conference was convened in February 2012. According to the International Maritime Bureau, pirate attacks in the Indian Ocean had by October 2012 dropped to a six-year low. Attempted hijackings fell from 237 in 2011 to 75 the following year, with successful attacks plummeting from 28 in 2011 to 14 in 2012. Additionally, only 1 ship was attacked in the third quarter of 2012 compared to 36 during the same period in 2011.
SUMMARY OF EVENTS
List of ships attacked by Somali pirates
Somali pirates have attacked hundreds of vessels in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean region, though most attacks do not result in a successful hijacking. In 2008, there were 111 attacks which included 42 successful hijackings. However, this is only a fraction of the up to 30,000 merchant vessels which pass through that area. The rate of attacks in January and February 2009 was about 10 times higher than during the same period in 2008 and “there have been almost daily attacks in March”,] with 79
attacks, 21 successful, by mid-April. Most of these attacks occurred in the Gulf of Aden but subsequently the pirates increased their range and started attacking ships as far south as off the coast of Kenya in the Indian Ocean.Below are some notable pirate events which have garnered significant media coverage since 2007.
On 28 May 2007, a Chinese sailor was killed by the pirates because the ship’s owners failed to meet their ransom demand. On 5 October 2008, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 1838 , calling on nations with vessels in the area to apply military force to repress the acts of piracy. At the 101st council of the International Maritime Organization, India called for a United Nations peacekeeping force under unified command to tackle piracy off Somalia. (There has been a general and complete arms embargo against Somalia since 1992.)
In November 2008, Somali pirates began hijacking ships well outside the Gulf of Aden, perhaps targeting ships headed for the port of Mombasa, Kenya.[26] The frequency and sophistication of the attacks also increased around this time, as did the size of vessels being targeted. Large cargo ships, oil and chemical tankers on international voyages became the new targets of choice for the Somali hijackers. This is in stark contrast to the pirate attacks which were once frequent in the Strait of Malacca, another strategically important waterway for international trade, which were according to maritime security expert Catherine Zara Raymond, generally directed against “smaller, more vulnerable vessels carrying trade across the Straits or employed in the coastal trade on either side of the Straits.
On 19 November 2008, the Indian Navy warship INS Tabar sank a suspected pirate mothership. Later, it was claimed to be a Thai trawler being hijacked by pirates. The Indian Navy later defended its actions by stating that they were fired upon first.
On 21 November 2008, BBC News reported that the Indian Navy had received United Nations approval to enter Somali waters to combat piracy.
On 8 April 2009, four Somali pirates seized MV Maersk Alabama 240 nautical miles (440 km; 280 mi) southeast of the Somalia port city of Eyl. The ship was carrying 17,000 metric tons of cargo, of which 5,000 metric tons were relief supplies bound for Somalia, Uganda, and Kenya. On 12 April 2009, U.S. Navy SEAL snipers killed the three pirates that were holding Captain Richard Phillips hostage aboard a lifeboat from Maersk Alabama after determining that Captain Phillips’ life was in immediate danger. A fourth pirate, Abdul Wali Muse, surrendered and was taken into custody. On 18 May, a federal grand jury in New York returned a 10-count indictment against him.
On 20 April 2009, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commented on the capture and release of seven Somali pirates by Dutch Naval forces who were on a NATO mission.[41] After an attack on Handytankers Magic, a petroleum tanker, the Dutch frigate De Zeven Provinciën tracked the pirates back to a pirate “mother ship” and captured them. They confiscated the pirates’ weapons and freed 20 Yemeni fishermen whom the pirates had kidnapped and who had been forced to sail the pirate “mother ship”. Since the Dutch Naval Forces were part of a NATO exercise, but not on an EU mission, they lacked legal jurisdiction to keep the pirates so they released them. Clinton stated that this action “sends the wrong signal” and that additional coordination was needed among nations.
On 23 April 2009, international donors pledged over $250 million for Somalia, including $134 million to increase the African Union peacekeeping mission from 4,350 troops to 8,000 troops and $34 million for Somali security forces. Secretary-General
of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon told delegates at a donors’ conference sponsored by the UN that “Piracy is a symptom of anarchy and insecurity on the ground”, and that “More security on the ground will make less piracy on the seas. Somali President Sharif Ahmed pledged at the conference that he would fight piracy and to loud applause said that “It is our duty to pursue these criminals not only on the high seas, but also on terra firma” The Somali government has not gone after pirates because pirate leaders currently have more power than the government. It has been estimated by piracy experts that in 2008 the pirates gained about $80 million through ransom payments.
On 2 May 2009, Somali pirates captured MV Ariana with its 24 Ukrainian crew.The ship was released on 10 December 2009 after a ransom of almost US$3,000,000 was paid On 8 November 2009, Somali pirates threatened that a kidnapped British couple, the Chandlers, would be “punished” if a German warship did not release seven pirates.[47]Omer, one of the pirates holding the British couple, claimed the seven men were fishermen, but a European Union Naval Force spokesman stated they were captured as they fired AK-47 assault rifles at a French fishing vessel. The Chandlers were released on 14 November 2010 after 388 days of captivity. At least two ransom payments, reportedly over GBP 500 000, had been made.
In April 2010, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) alluded to possible covert and overt action against the pirates. CIA officials had been publicly warning of this potential threat for months. In a Harpers Magazine article, a CIA official said, “We need to deal with this problem from the beach side, in concert with the ocean side, but we don’t have an embassy in Somalia and limited, ineffective intelligence operations. We need to work in Somalia and in Lebanon, where a lot of the ransom money has changed hands. But our operations in Lebanon are a joke, and we have no presence at all in Somalia”.
In early May 2010, Russian special forces retook a Russian oil tanker that had been hijacked by 11 pirates. One died in the assault, and a week later Russian military officials reported that the remainder were freed due to weaknesses in international law but died before reaching the Somali coast. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had announced the day the ship was retaken that “We’ll have to do what our forefathers did when they met the pirates” until a suitable way of prosecuting them was available.
On 11 May 2010 Somali pirates seized a Bulgarian-flagged ship in the Gulf of Aden. Panega, with 15 Bulgarian crew members aboard, was en route from the Red Sea to India or Pakistan. This was the first such hijacking of a Bulgarian-flagged ship. On 12 May 2010, Athens announced that Somali pirates had seized a Greek vessel in the Gulf of Aden with at least 24 people on board, including two Greek citizens and some Filipinos. The vessel, sailing under the Liberian flag, was transporting iron from Ukraine to China.
On 14 January 2011, while speaking to reporters, Commodore Michiel Hijmans of the Royal Netherlands Navy stated that the use of hijacked vessels in more recent hijackings had led to increased range of pirating activities, as well as difficulty to actively thwart future events due to the use of kidnapped sailors as human shields.
On 15 January 2011 13 Somali pirates seized Samho Jewelry, a Maltese-flagged chemical carrier operated by Samho Shipping, 650 km southeast of Muscat. The Republic of Korea Navy destroyer Choi Young shadowed Samho Jewelry for several days. In the early morning of 21 January 2011, 25 ROK Navy SEALs on small boats launched from Choi Young boarded Samho Jewelrywhile Choi Young‘s Westland Super Lynx provided covering fire. Eight pirates were killed and five captured in the operation; the crew of 21 was freed with the captain suffering a gunshot wound to the stomach.[53] The captain fully recovered later.
On 28 January 2011, an Indian Coast Guard aircraft while responding to a distress call from CMA CGM Verdi, located two skiffs attempting a piracy attack near Lakshadweep. Seeing the aircraft, the skiffs immediately aborted their piracy attempt and dashed towards the mother vessel, MV Prantalay 14 – a hijacked Thai trawler, which hurriedly hoisted the two skiffs on board and moved westward. The Indian Navy deployed INS Cankarso which located and engaged the mothership 100 nautical miles (190 km) north of the Minicoy island. Ten pirates were killed while 15 were apprehended and 20 Thai and Burmese fishermen being held aboard the ship as hostages were rescued. Within a week of its previous success, the Indian Navy captured another hijacked Thai trawler, MV Prantalay 11 and captured 28 pirates aboard in an operation undertaken by INS Tir pursuant to receiving information that a Greek merchant ship had been attacked by pirates on board high-speed boats, although it had managed to avoid capture. When INS Tir ordered the pirate ship to stop and be boarded for inspection, it was fired upon. INS Tir returned fire in which three pirates were injured and caused the pirates to raise a white flag indicating their surrender. INS Tir subsequently was joined by CGS Samar of the Indian Coast Guard. Officials from the Indian Navy reported that a total of 52 men were apprehended, but of that 24 are believed to be Thai fishermen who were hostages of the 28 African pirates.
In late February 2011, piracy targeting smaller yachts and collecting ransom made headlines when four Americans were killed aboard their vessel, Quest, by their captors, while a military ship shadowed them.. A federal court in Norfolk, Virginia, sentenced three members of the gang that seized the yacht to life imprisonment. On 24 February 2011 a Danish family on a yacht were captured by pirates.
In March 2011, the Indian Navy intercepted a pirate mother vessel 600 nautical miles (1,100 km) west of the Indian coast in the Arabian Sea on Monday and rescued 13 hostages. Sixty-one pirates were also caught in the operation carried out by Navy’s INS Kalpeni.
In late March 2011, the Indian Navy seized 16 suspected pirates after a three-hour-long battle in the Arabian Sea, The navy also rescued 16 crew members of a hijacked Iranian ship west of the Lakshadweep Islands. The crew included 12 Iranians and four Pakistanis.
On 5 January 2012, an MH-60S Seahawk from the guided-missile destroyer USS Kidd, part of the USS John C. Stennis Carrier
Strike Group, detected a suspected pirate skiff alongside the Iranian-flagged fishing boat, Al Molai. The master of Al Molai sent a distress call about the same time reporting pirates were holding him captive.
A visit, board, search and seizure team from Kidd boarded the dhow, a traditional Arabian sailing vessel, and detained 15 suspected pirates who had been holding a 13-member Iranian crew hostage for several weeks. Al Molai had been hijacked and used as a mothership for pirate operations throughout the Persian Gulf, members of the Iranian vessel’s crew reported.
With the increase in illegal fishing off Somalia after the 2013 decline in piracy, fishing vessels became targets in a few incidents in 2015. In March two Iranian vessels and in November one Iranian and a Thai vessel were attacked.
The tanker Aris 13, which had been carrying fuel from Djibouti to Mogadishu, was hijacked off the coast of Somalia on 13 March 2017. This was the first reported hijacking of a large commercial vessel in five years. Two skiffs approached the tanker and boarded the vessel off the northern coast of Somalia. Eight Sri Lankan crew members were aboard at the time. After being captured, Aris 13 was taken to Alula and anchored there before its release without ransom was confirmed by security officials on 16 March 2017.
PROFILE:
Most of the pirates are young. An official list issued in 2010 by the Somali government of 40 apprehended pirate suspects noted that 80% (32/40) were born in Somalia’s southern conflict zones, while only 20% (8/40) came from the more stable northern regions. As of 2012, the pirates primarily operated from the Galmudug region in the central section of the country. In previous years, they largely ventured to sea from ports located in the northeastern province of Puntland until the regional administration launched a major anti-piracy campaign and operation and established a maritime police force (PMPF).
According to a 2008 BBC report, the pirates can be divided into three main categories:
— Local fishermen, considered the brains of the pirates’ operations due to their skill and knowledge of the sea.
— Ex-militiamen, who previously fought for the local clan warlords, or ex-military from the former Barre government used as the muscle.
— Technical experts, who operate equipment such as GPS devices.
The closest Somali term for ‘pirate’ is burcad badeed, which means “ocean robber”. However, the pirates themselves prefer to
be called badaadinta badah or “saviours of the sea” (often translated as “coastguard”).
METHODOLOGY:
A pirate skiff in Baltiysk, Russia—captured by the Russian Navy
The methods used in a typical pirate attack have been analyzed.[72] They show that while attacks can be expected at any time, most occur during the day; often in the early hours. They may involve two or more skiffs that can reach speeds of up to 25 knots. With the help of motherships that include captured fishing and merchant vessels, the operating range of the skiffs has been increased far into the Indian Ocean. An attacked vessel is approached from quarter or stern; RPGs and small arms are used to intimidate the operator to slow down and allow boarding. Light ladders are brought along to climb aboard. Pirates then will try to get control of the bridge to take operational control of the vessel.
According to Sky News, pirates often jettison their equipment in the sea before arrest, as this lowers the likelihood of a successful prosecution.
WEAPONARY AND FUNDING:
The pirates get most of their weapons from Yemen, but a significant number come from Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital. Weapons dealers in the capital receive a deposit from a hawala dealer on behalf of the pirates and the weapons are then driven to Puntland where the pirates pay the balance. Various photographs of pirates in situ indicate that their weapons are predominantly AK-47, AKM, Type 56, RPK, PKM, RPG-7, and Tokarev pistols. Additionally, given the particular origin of their weaponry, they are likely to have hand grenades such as the RGD-5 or F1.
The funding of piracy operations is now structured in a stock exchange, with investors buying and selling shares in upcoming attacks in a bourse in Harardhere. Pirates say ransom money is paid in large denomination US$ bills. It is delivered to them in burlap sacks which are either dropped from helicopters or cased in waterproof suitcases loaded onto tiny skiffs. Ransom money has also been delivered to pirates via parachute, as happened in January 2009 when an orange container with $3 million cash inside was dropped onto the deck of the supertanker MV Sirius Star to secure the release of ship and crew. To authenticate the banknotes, pirates use currency-counting machines, the same technology used at foreign exchange bureaus worldwide. According to one pirate, these machines are, in turn, purchased from business connections in Dubai, Djibouti, and other areas.[78] Hostages seized by the pirates usually have to wait 45 days or more for the ships’ owners to pay the ransom and secure their release.[79]
In 2008, there were also allegations that the pirates received assistance from some members of the Somali diaspora. Somali expatriates, including some members of the Somali community in Canada, reputedly offered funds, equipment and information.
According to the head of the UN’s counter-piracy division, Colonel John Steed, the Al-Shabaab group in 2011 increasingly sought to cooperate with the pirate gangs in the face of dwindling funds and resources for their own activities.[81] Steed, however, acknowledged that he had no definite proof of operational ties between the pirates and the Islamist militants. Detained pirates also indicated to UNODC officials that some measure of cooperation with Al-Shabaab militants was necessary, as they have increasingly launched maritime raids from areas in southern Somalia controlled by the insurgent outfit. Al-Shabaab members have also extorted the pirates, demanding protection money from them and forcing seized pirate gang leaders in Harardhere to hand over 20% of future ransom proceeds.[82] It has been suggested that al-Qaeda have received funding from pirate operations. A maritime intelligence source told CBS News that it was “‘inconceivable’ to Western intelligence agencies that al Qaeda would not be getting some financial reward from the successful hijackings”. They go on to express concern about this funding link being able to keep the group satisfied as piracy gains more publicity and higher ransoms.
On 19th May 2012, MT. SMYRNI with a deadweight of 149999 MT owned by Dynacom Tankers Management Company, Athens Creece (My company) was hijacked and released after 10 months after paying ransom of 12 million US dollars. She was bound to Balikpapan, Indonesia after loading in Ceyhan, Turkey with Crude oil. Now with the naval patrol in the area and vessels transiting Gulf of Aden are carrying Armed guards, the attack has been reduced. Vessels are taking hardening measurers like rigging barbed wires around vessel, vigilant continuously to deter any piracy attack.
Wishing all seafarers safer seas free of piracy.
