A plague of piracy off the Somali coast, with six vessels seized so far this year and many more attacked or threatened, has prompted the UN Security Council to consider a tougher counter-attack by the world’s navies.
The latest victims were the 26 crew of a Spanish fishing boat, freed unharmed at the weekend after a $1.2m (€770,000, £606,000) ransom was paid, according to Somali officials.
Earlier this month French forces captured six hijackers of a French yacht after pursuing them on to land and recovering a reported $2m ransom. The pirates were taken to France, where they are awaiting trial.
The waters off Somalia are one of the world’s worst piracy hotspots, along with the coasts of Nigeria and Indonesia. With no navy of its own, Somalia’s UN-backed transitional government relies on the intervention of foreign warships.
The Danish, French and Dutch navies have taken it in turns to patrol the waters off Somalia to protect the food aid on which 2m Somalis rely. But not only food shipments are at risk.
Targets have ranged from small craft to oil tankers, with pirates using rocket-propelled grenades against the larger vessels. Apart from the potential disruption of international trade through the busy Gulf of Aden, piracy has also forced up maritime insurance rates.
Pirates were even blamed for causing a jump in the volatile oil price when they fired on a Saudi-bound Japanese tanker last week, spilling hundreds of gallons of fuel into the sea. The pirates had fled by the time a German frigate intervened.
In the face of an upsurge in attacks this year, after 31 incidents in 2007, there are calls for tougher concerted international action. France and the US are proposing new rules that would allow the world’s navies to chase pirates into Somalia’s territorial waters and arrest and prosecute them.
Current international law only allows navies to combat piracy on the high seas. However, a draft resolution circulated to Security Council members at the weekend would extend that right to Somali waters for an initial six months.
Warships would be authorised to use “all necessary means” to repress acts of piracy, in co-ordination with the Somali government.
Supporters of the transitional government believe piracy is being used in part to fund warlords battling an administration that has only a tentative hold on power, even in Mogadishu, the capital. Ten people were killed there at the weekend in the latest clashes between government troops and Islamist rebels.
The proposed anti-piracy strategy comes as the UN considers a deeper engagement in Somalia. The country has been in almost constant turmoil since President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. US peacekeepers withdrew in 1993 after militias shot down two Black Hawk helicopters and killed 18 US personnel.
Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary general, has said UN troop contributors should be ready to send an 8,000-strong force if a broad-based political settlement were reached, rising to 27,000 if security were assured.
