In the Horn of Africa, Somalian sea marauders are making a multi-million dollar industry of ship hijacking
By Michael Mukwuzi
The scorecard of the outing of the pirates from Somalia operating around the strategic Gulf of Aden speaks for itself: 78 attacks on vessels in 2009, with 19 successful hijacks and 17 vessels with over 300 sailors still in their custody as hostages. Each boat carries the potential of a million-dollar ransom.
This dreadful record was improved upon early April with the capture of a Danish-owned but U.S.-flagged cargo ship with 20 American crew members on board. The 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama was carrying emergency relief to Mombasa, Kenya, when it was hijacked, said Peter Beck-Bang, spokesman for the Copenhagen-based container shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk. The ship was the sixth to be seized within a week, a rise that analysts attributed to a new strategy by Somalian pirates who are operating far from the warships patrolling the Gulf of Aden.
The hijack, described as unusual, showed how more and more desperate pirates are becoming. The Maersk Alabama is a container ship capable of speeds normally thought to be beyond those at which the Somalian pirates have successfully attacked ships. The vessel has a relatively high freeboard which has proved a deterrent in the past as it doesn’t allow easy access to the “boarding ladders” used by most Somali pirates. Further, this ship flies an American flag - thought by many to be scary to pirates. Thus, maritime experts have been wondering: why stir up the U.S. if you can avoid it?
The first pirate attack involving U.S. nationals and a U.S.-flagged vessel in recent memory, it expectedly drew the ire of the American government. Moving swiftly, a special warning message was issued by combined US Maritime Forces out of Bahrain. As the attacking pirates clambered aboard and shot in the air, Captain Richard Phillips told his crew to lock themselves in a cabin and surrendered himself to safeguard his men. This great feat of valour allowed all the 19-man crew to sail safely to the Kenyan port of Mombasa, while Phillips was then taken hostage in an enclosed lifeboat that was soon shadowed by three U.S. warships and a helicopter.
Days later, US Navy SEAL snipers on the USS Bainbridge got the go-ahead from The Pentagon to fire after one pirate held an AK-47 close to Phillips’ back, U.S. defence officials said. The snipers rescued the captain, killing three young pirates who held him captive in a drifting lifeboat for five days. A fourth pirate surrendered after seeking medical attention for a wound he received in trying to take over Phillips’ vessel. Two Somali pirates were also killed by the French Navy in a hostage rescue operation penultimate week. U.S. officials were, last week, considering whether to bring the wounded pirate to the United States or possibly turn him over to Kenya. Both piracy and hostage-taking carry life prison sentences under U.S. laws.
Undeterred by U.S. and French action, Somali pirates had hijacked three more ships in the Gulf of Aden. The latest crown for the pirates was the M.V. Irene E.M., a Greek-managed bulk carrier sailing from the Middle East to South Asia. The Irene was attacked and seized in the middle of the night, a novel tactic for the pirates. U.S. Navy Lt. Nathan Christensen, spokesman for the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, said the vessel was flagged in the Caribbean island nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and carried a 23-man Filipino crew.
The Somali pirates also reportedly seized two Egyptian fishing boats in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia’s northern coast, according to Egypt’s Foreign Ministry, which said there were 18 to 24 Egyptians on board.
With the Somali marauders unyielding, the US is considering new options to fight piracy, including adding Navy gun ships along the Somali coastline and launching a campaign to disable pirate “mother ships,” according to military officials. President Barack Obama has promised the United States would work with nations around the world to fight the problem. “I want to be very clear that we are resolved to halt the rise of piracy in that region, and to achieve that goal, we’re going to have to continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks,” Obama said.
The Gulf of Aden, which links the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, is one of the world’s busiest and most vital shipping lanes, crossed by over 20,000 ships each year. Though an armada of warships from nearly a dozen countries patrol the Gulf of Aden and nearby Indian Ocean waters frequently, they have done little to halt the activities of the Somali hoodlums. Observers say the area is so vast they can’t stop all hijacks. The area involved off the coast of Somalia and Kenya as well as the Gulf of Aden equals more than 1.1 million square miles or 2.5 million square kilometres, roughly four times the size of Texas or the size of the Mediterranean and Red seas combined. The length of the Somali coastline is roughly the same length as the entire Eastern seaboard of the United States.
Nigeria will be one of the nations the U.S. will be cooperating with in fighting piracy. For so long, the activities of sea pirates have remained a scourge to seafearers and the entire maritime industry. According to Mrs. Margaret Orakwusi, President of the Nigerian Trawler Owners Association, NITOA, the rising spate of pirate activities, sea robberies, poaching and other illegal operations in Nigeria’s territorial waters and seas (with the exception of illegal oil bunkering in the Niger Delta region) have cost the country more than N25 billion in less than four years.
Speaking at a meeting of the Inter-agency Maritime Security Task Force on Acts of Illegality in Nigerian Waters, IAMSTAF, Orakwusi noted that capacity and bad maritime governance are the driving forces behind increasing pirate attacks, sea robberies and other illicit activities of individual and corporate bodies in Nigeria’s coastal regions. Orakwusi informed that the country’s fishing industry had witnessed at least 293 documented sea robberies and pirate attacks between 2003 and 2008, with most of them resulting in loss of lives and destruction of vessels and trawlers.
Pirates and sea robbers hijack vessels in the country’s territorial waters and force them to pay ransom into given banks’ accounts. She lamented the refusal of the management of the banks involved to give details of the individuals (or companies) that own such accounts. She described the situation as disturbing, considering its negative consequences on the fishing industry. Orakwusi identified Badagry and Bakassi Peninsula as Nigeria’s maritime domains where cases of pirate attacks and sea robberies “are very recurrent.” In the last quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of 2008, the attacks became more rampant, resulting in the death of many crew members.
Other hotspots of pirate activities are the Lagos to Lekki axis, Awoye-Aiyetoro-Benin River, Escravos-Forcados-Ramos-Dodo, Fishtown-Brass-Bartholomew-Barbara area, Sombreiro-Bonny-BOT/Andoni-Opobo region and Qua Iboe/Calabar/Rio Del Rey.
Pirate attacks have defied the deployment of security forces and the assurance of safety given by the government to the industry. In the spate of the attacks, 20 vessels were attacked within one week and 10 lives lost which resulted in the industry finally grinding to a halt between late 2007 and early 2008. She said there were about 250 registered fishing trawlers in Nigeria, according to 2003/2004 records, operated by over 40 fishing companies. The number of trawlers and companies reduced by 50 per cent within five years alone. “Only 19 fishing companies are now operating with just 170 vessels. The issue of piracy and sea robberies has contributed immensely to this drastic reduction and if allowed to continue, will lead to total collapse of the fishing industry in the country,” Orakwusi feared.
Communities along the fishing grounds now demand for huge money before vessels are allowed passage. “The pirates have constituted themselves into republics where settlements and clearance have to be made… This is a republic within a Republic of Nigeria,” she declared.
Observers argue that if left to degenerate further, the piracy situation will lead to about 500,000 job cuts and huge loss of revenue to the government.
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