Somali pirates accounted for nearly a third of all reported attacks on ships, often taking hostages and using high levels of violence, a maritime watchdog said Thursday.The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said 63 of the 199 piracy incidents recorded worldwide in the first nine months of this year occurred in the waters off Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden. The figure is almost double the 36 attacks blamed on Somali pirates out of 198 global attacks for the same period the year before.
IMB Director Pottengal Mukundan said piracy in the Gulf of Aden - an important sea route for oil exports - was of particular concern. "It is clear that pirates in the Gulf of Aden believe that they can operate with impunity in attacking vessels, some of which have included tankers and large bulk carriers," Mukundan said.
The IMB says globally 115 vessels have been boarded, 31 hijacked and 23 fired upon in the same period. A total of 581 crew have been taken hostage with nine kidnapped, nine killed and seven still missing.
NATO warships are set to start tackling piracy off the Somali coast in the next few days and escorting aid ships to the war-ravaged nation, an alliance spokesman said Wednesday.
Of the 63 attacks in the region, 26 vessels were hijacked, 8 off Somalia and 18 in the Gulf of Aden, with 12 vessels still being held for ransom and 259 crew still held hostage as of the end of September, the IMB reported.
Mukundan said attacks sometimes involved ships being indiscriminately fired upon using automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. "What is required is robust action against the pirates' mother ships before they succeed in hijacking vessels," he said. "The locations and descriptions of these mother ships are known," he added.
The IMB placed Nigeria as the second-worst piracy hot spot with 24 incidents so far this year, of which 20 have occurred near the port city of Lagos.
Indonesia is the third-riskiest shipping area according to the IMB, with 23 mostly low-level attacks scattered throughout the vast archipelago. The figure is down on last year's 37 recorded attacks. Meanwhile, the Malacca Straits, which runs between Indonesia and Malaysia saw only two incidents - the same as the previous year.