A few days ago Somali pirates hijacked the 300,000-ton, Greek-owned oil supertanker Maran Centaurus about 800 miles off the coast of Somalia. The ship was fully laden with 2 million barrels of oil on board. Sounds familiar? In November 2008, Somali pirates boarded and commandeered the Sirius Star, with a full load of about 2 million barrels of Saudi crude (more than 25% of the kingdom’s daily output), some 450 nautical miles southeast of the Kenyan port of Mombasa, and rerouted the ship to the Somali port of Eyl.
The Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean off of the east African Coast is the world’s hot spot for piracy. In 2008 alone there were 66 reported piracy attacks off of Yemen, 11 off of Tanzania, and 9 off of Kenya. Somalia’s pirates are the boldest, willing to commandeer any vessel of any size. Somalia has been devoid of a stable central government since 1991, and warlords and their militias rule the land and the sea and have become more audacious and more successful in the piracy business in recent years. The main aim of the hijacking of vessels is rarely to make a political statement, or for the commodities on board, it is the ransom money that can be extorted from the vessel’s owners ($30 million in the past year according to some accounts). Money that can equip militias with bigger and better boats and weapons. (The ransom of the Sirius Star cost $3 million).
In response, the US, the UK and other countries have about a dozen military vessels patrolling the area as part of the anti-terrorist Djibouti-based coalition Combined Task Force 150. The United Nations has adopted Resolution 1838 to fight piracy off the coast of Somalia. This fall. the US began flying sophisticated drones over East African waters as part of the fight against piracy. Some merchant vessels have installed sonic weapons to deter would be raiders at a distance, while others have began to place armed marshals on board to protect crews and cargoes.
But the area is vast, and the local pirates are determined. The ability of the US Navy SEALs to rescue Captain Phillips of the hijacked Maersk Alabama (in the well-publicized April 2009 incident), other anti-piracy success stories, and all the new countermeasures have done little to deter the number of attacks. Case in point, the ship was attacked again last month in Somali waters (unsuccessfully, thanks to an armed response from onboard the Maersk Alabama).
At last count pirates now hold about a dozen vessels hostage and more than 200 crew members, including the Maran Centaurus crew of 28 — 16 Filipinos, nine Greeks, two Ukrainians, and a Romanian.
Piracy is a dangerous way to make a living, but with the ransoms being handed over, it is a lucrative one.
My mother was right, when she tried to put any family mishap or minor personal setback in its proper perspective: “Worse things happen at sea.”
Indeed they do.
What the @#$% is wrong on this planet. What a bunch of pansies we are. All military forces should be used to stop this immediately. Not one more ship nor one more crew should be captured. Let’s put a stop to it. This is war!
It is war. Some donors of AGF International raised this issue with us.
have an insurancece co. contact me! i`ll tell them how to combat this and no force will be left up to the pirates.sure there`s a lot of water use it to your advantage.