Seatrade Global
Thursday, October 17, 2013
UK firm Dryad Maritime Intelligence has warned that the attack of
two vessels in the space of four days indicates that maritime piracy
has returned to East African waters.
Last Friday, 296,919dwt Hong Kong-flagged crude carrier MV Island
Splendor came under attack 230nm off the Somali coast, when pirates in
two skiffs opened fire on onboard private maritime security personnel.
According to Dryad, the attack, which represented the first on a
large merchant vessel since April, was followed by a second, 270
nautical miles further East, four days later. Dryad has since concluded
that the two attacks were undertaken by the same pirate gang or “Pirate
Action Group” (PAG).
“Despite the pressure applied by coalition forces and the assessed
depletion of pirate resources, there was a likelihood that we would see a
break out of a PAG into the sea lanes and that the hijack and ransom of
a single large merchant vessel would be all it would take to feed the
infrastructure of the Somali pirate criminal enterprise,” said Ian
Millen, intelligence director at Dryad. “Following Monday’s report, it
would appear that the attack on two vessels in the space of four days
confirms that the Somali pirate business model is not yet broken.”
Millen indicated that numerous reports of pirate activity in the Gulf
of Aden during the Southwest Monsoon were “not considered these to be
pirate related”.
“We do, however, continue to encourage all vessels and their embarked
security teams to report their concerns, whilst encouraging them to
understand normal patterns of behaviour to avoid tragic consequences for
themselves or for the many innocent seafarers they encounter. The
incident with Island Splendor last Friday is a classic example of where
vigilance and a professional response paid dividends in preventing what
could have been the first real pirate success of 2013.”