Pirate flags lowered
Nobody will deny that piracy is a scourge of shipping. Incidents continue to be reported. So the latest news from the International Maritime Bureau is welcome – the number of incidents of piracy has declined, and combined with a geographic shift.
The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) is a part of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), headquartered in London. Its report is published quarterly and is always eagerly awaited.
According to the report of 8 April, significantly fewer maritime piracy and armed raid incidents were registered in the first three months of this year than in the like-for-like period in the previous year. 38 attacks were reported; 27 ships were boarded; seven ships were fired on, and four attempted raids took place. The previous year saw a total of 66 incidents of piracy. The most important development, other than the reduction in incidents, is that for the first time since 1994 no ship was abducted.
Nonetheless it is still too early to consider this a new trend, according to the IMB. “The recent report from the IMB’s Piracy Bureau is encouraging,” IMB director Pottengal Mukundan said. He added that “it will be important to build more effective cooperative reporting mechanisms between business and government, so that we can deliver a strong and con- sistent response to piracy.” The number of unreported incidents also continues to worry the IMB’s officers.
Shift in geographic focus
Whereas several spectacular raids took place off the Somali coast in the past, the hardest hit area in the first quarter of last year was the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of West Africa, with 22 incidents reported. Last year there was a total of 21 reported abductions of sailors, with all the incidents taking place in this region. The attacks on shipping by pirates operating off the coast of West Africa took place specifically off the coasts of Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria and Togo.
Over the past decade piracy off the coast of Nigeria has increased sharply. In the last year the total number of incidents finally came down again in this region, however. There was a total of only 14 incidents of piracy reported off the coast of Nigeria in the first quarter of last year, compared to 22 last year. The decline in piracy there may well be due to the effectiveness of increased navy efforts to actively respond to reported incidents by deploying patrol boats, the report said. Nevertheless, Nigerian waters, and in particular the port of Lagos, remain a dangerous area for ships.
In Asia, Indonesia registered a decline in pirate activity in the first quarter of this year. According to the Piracy Bureau report, there were only three incidents against ships anchored in ports. This is the lowest number since 2010.
According to the IMB, the decisive factor for the latest declines is the IMB’s consistent appeal for transparency, communication as well as coordination between the IMB’s intelligence office in London and the various relevant international coastal protection authorities in action worldwide.
