The IMB Piracy Reporting Centre reported that a group of pirates has boarded a bulk carrier off the Indonesian cost. The coast guard sailed along with the vessel to Singapore, but when they searched for the pirates onboard, they were nowhere to be found.
Specifically, the incident took place on September 30, 2019, when the ship was sailing approximately 3.7 miles west of Pulau Cula.
As the deck crew was conducting routine rounds onboard the vessel, they spotted five armed robbers on the aft deck.
Thus, they raised the alarm due to the emergency situation. They activated the ship security alert system (SSAS) and made the PA announcement.
This resulted to the robbers escaping without stealing anything.
The crew reported the incident to the Singapore Vessel Traffic Information System (VTIS) and a coast guard boat came to escort the ship to Singapore.
The officers boarded the vessel to look for the pirates, but found nothing.
IMB’s latest report, highlights that the seas circling West Africa are the most dangerous for piracy, as of the 75 seafarers taken hostage onboard or kidnapped for ransom worldwide, 62 were captured in the Gulf of Guinea – off the coasts of Nigeria, Guinea, Togo, Benin and Cameroon.
Concluding, i light of the alarming number of pirate incidents, BIMCO stated that international involvement and cooperation is the solution to piracy.
IMB strongly urges all shipmasters and owners to report all actual, attempted and suspected piracy and armed robbery incidents to the IMB PRC globally. This first step in the response chain is vital to ensuring that adequate resources are allocated by authorities to tackle piracy. Transparent statistics from an independent, non-political, international organization can act as a catalyst to achieve this goal.
