Tag: maritime piracy

Gulf of Guinea is often used as a place of their concentration The Gulf has become the second pirate base after Somali.This came in a statement for reporters in Moscow by the Russian Naval Chief Victor Chirkov.He pointed out that the sea brigands off Africa's western coast act on a different pattern than the pirates in the Gulf of Aden.The latter are normally content with plundering a ship and do not hold ship crews hostage to extort ransoms.On the situation in the Gulf of Aden, Admiral Chirkov said that Russia sent two Pacific Fleet squadrons to the areain the first six months of this year as part of its anti-piracy mission.Source: The Voice of Russia

Maritime-piracy symposium , Dubai , June 27-28 The UAE's call for a global policy action on combating piracy comes in line with the maritime-piracy symposium that will be held in Dubai on June 27-28. The idea is to enhance public-private partnerships and strengthen global engagement to tackle the problem.Piracy has become a scourge for sailors, ship owners and companies. It is time for all the stakeholders to come together and spread understanding on the issue and map out the challenges of response.For governments and those involved in the maritime industry, the time has come for concerted action, particularly against pirates operating off the coast of Somalia.There has been a spate of hijackings off the coast of Oman this year where, at last count, Somali pirates held 27 ships and more than 600 people as hostages. This is the result of the absence of a stable government in Somalia and the inflow of an abundance of weapons into the country.There is a financial cost to this menace. If piracy is not checked then the cost of goods coming into GCC countries may go up significantly as shipping companies pass on a 300-fold increase in emergency premiums per voyage across pirate-infested waters. ...

The Human Cost of Piracy 2011 A report highlighting latest details of the plight of seafarers at the hands of Somali pirates was launched on Friday 22nd June at a press conference in London. The report, The Human Cost of Piracy 2011, is written jointly by Kaija Hurlburt of One Earth Future for its Oceans Beyond Piracy project and by the International Maritime Bureau.The joint report is an update of the first report on the Human Cost of Piracy for 2010, launched in London by Oceans Beyond Piracy in June last year. This report includes a statistical analysis of the threats of violence caused by acts of piracy as well as the first published findings collected as a result of the Declaration Condemning Acts of Violence Against Seafarers.The Declaration, signed initially in Washington in August last year by Liberia, the Marshall Islands, and Panama, and by the Bahamas in March 2012, commits signatory states to submit reports to the IMB on the treatment of seafarers held hostage."Thousands are attacked for financial gain without regard for the human cost to attain a ransom," says Kaija Hurlburt, Project Manager with Oceans Beyond Piracy. "In 2011, at least 3,863 seafarers were fired upon ...

Each unit will have a psychologist, psychiatrist and counsellors to assist hostage seafarers A special trauma management care unit (TMU) for seafarers and their families, affected by Somali piracy, will be established by city-based organisations - the Company of Master Mariners of India (CMMI, Pune Chapter), the Institute of Marine Engineers and the Indian Maritime Foundation. The TMU will initially be a mobile unit in Pune city. Later, it would be extended to New Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata.Each unit will have a psychologist, psychiatrist and counsellors to assist hostage seafarers and their families handle mental and emotional trauma. Although there are no fresh cases of piracy affecting seafarers in Pune currently, this will be a mobile trauma unit and the team will go wherever required. Speaking on this initiative, Capt Sudhir Subhedar, chairman, CMMI, Pune chapter, said a proper process has been established to counsel seafarers during crisis situations.Counselling will be done by a team of psychologists and counsellors with the help of volunteers from the maritime fraternity. This will include counselling provided during the captivity of the seafarers, when the team will meet the family.Counselling will also be given on the release of the seafarers, teaching the family about ...

Oil overflowed from a Somali ships fuel tank as it traveled from Dubai to Somalia An oil leak this week contaminated coastal areas near Ras Al-Ara, near the Bab Al-Mandab strait on the Red Sea.According to Murad Al-Halimi, the deputy director of the General Authority of Maritime Affairs, the oil overflowed from a Somali ship's fuel tank as it traveled from Dubai to Somalia. A Somali businessman, he said, owns the ship.Al-Halimi said the oil spill occurred following the ship's run-in with Somali pirates nine miles off Yemen's coast, near Ras Al-Ara and close to Bab Al-Mandab.He said international forces rescued the ship after pirates attacked its fuel tank.Yemeni Coast Guard forces in the Red Sea received a notice Friday from the Regional Center for Piracy Information Exchange, established to combat privacy and led by the Ministry of Transportation, that Ras Al-Ara district has been exposed to environmental contamination.Yemeni Coast Guard forces discovered dead fish in Al-Hodeida from the oil spill.After informing the General Authority of Maritime Affairs about the dead fish, a committee to check the fish for contamination was established. The committee found that the fish flocked to the port basin and, unable to escape the ship rotations, ...

Piracy: The Human Cost Men who were held captive by Somali pirates will retell their traumatic stories in a documentary that will show on the first day of a global anti-piracy conference next week.The sailors who were held for 11 months and families of hostages still being held captive off the shores of Somalia are the voices on Piracy: The Human Cost.The premiere of the film will be shown in Dubai on Wednesday at the two-day Counter Piracy conference organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the port operator DP World.One poignant scene focuses on Nareman and Mishal Jawaid, the daughters of Captain Jawaid of the cargo ship MV Albedo, which has been held by pirates since November 2010. The girls say hope that their father will survive helps them get through every day.Nareman Jawaid works in Dubai and had bid farewell to her father two years ago when he set sail from Jebel Ali port.In another scene, an Indian engineer tells of the surprise element in the pirate's attack on another ship, and the harrowing price his crew paid. The sailor was held captive on the MV Savina Caylyn from February to December of last year."I want people ...

At least 35 hostage deaths in 2011 Somali pirates seizing Indian Ocean ships were responsible for at least 35 hostage deaths in 2011, a report showed on Friday, with levels of violence rising.The number of prisoners taken by pirates fell to 555, at least, in 2011 from 645 in 2010, the report by the U.S.-based One Earth Future foundation and International Maritime Bureau said.Eight were known to have been killed by their captors either during their initial capture or were executed later, it said, with another eight dying of malnutrition or disease. The remainder were killed either during rescue attempts by military forces or while trying to escape.While solid data on previous years is limited, the total of 35 is seen as by far the highest number of piracy-related fatalities in a single year."We know these figures are almost certainly an underestimate," project manager Kaija Hurlburt told Reuters. "A lot of the ships now being taken are regional dhows that are often never reported. They might have 12 to 20 people aboard each time."Despite a major naval effort by several nations, hundreds of young Somalis engage in piracy every year in the hope of ransoms that can run to millions ...

Man accused of being Somali pirate but claims that pirates were using him as a translator A man accused of being one of the Somali pirates involved in the 71-day siege of a Danish ship in the Gulf of Aden can claim that the actual pirates were using him as a translator, a federal judge ruled.Pirate took over the M/V CEC Future on Nov. 7, 2008, while the ship was transporting cargo for Texas-based McDermott International. After using AK-47s, a rocket-propelled grenade and handguns to seize the vessel, the pirates held the cargo and 13 crew members as hostage for 71 days, until the ship's Danish owner, the Clipper Group, delivered a $1.7 million ransom.Ali Mohamed Ali, who faces charges of conspiracy, aiding and abetting, piracy, and hostage related to the incident, claims that he was as much a prisoner as the CEC Future's crew.Though Ali says pirates ordered him to board the Karagol and translate demands from their pirates to the Clipper Group, prosecutors say Ali negotiated a ransom of $1.7 million for the pirates and $75,000 for himself. In a heavily redacted ruling, U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle agreed to let Ali present evidence that could reveal his ...

An official from Google recently announced at a defense technology conference that his firm would soon roll out a feature that would allow any Internet user to track all ships at sea, including U.S. Navy warships, in real time. The Google official was angry that the navy itself did not have this capability. This shocked many in the audience and later embarrassed the Google official. Turns out that the navy has had this tracking capability since the 1980s, when it began equipping its ships with AIS (Automatic Identification System) transmitters that all large ships are required to carry in order to qualify for insurance.For more than a decade satellites have been used to more rapidly collect and distribute the AIS transmissions, making it easier for these large ships to be tracked. Shipping companies are the main users of this information. The U.S. Navy has used the AIS monitoring system since the 1980s.The navy, however, can turn off certain AIS information as needed. For example, the warships can only transmit location but not name of the ship. This tells mariners and others (like Google users and Somali pirates) with access to AIS information that a large ship is at a certain ...