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Somalia: Maritime Body Wants UN to Move On Piracy Off the Horn of Africa
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The East African (Nairobi)
31 July 2007
Posted to the web 31 July 2007
Abdulsamad Ali
Nairobi
The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) wants the UN Security Council to undertake urgent measures to restore sanity to Somali waters, where piracy and armed attacks against ships have become the order of the day.
Following the appeal by IMO secretary general Efthimios Mitropoulos and UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, the Security Council is expected to pressure the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia to either crack down on the menace itself or seek international assistance.
The Somali coastline has been identified as the area with the highest piracy risk in the world by the International Maritime Bureau.
The IMB says in its latest report that up to July this year, there had been 15 reported attacks on vessels in or near Somali waters. There were 10 such incidents in the whole of last year.
The most recent attack occurred on the Denmark registered general cargo vessel mv Danica White during her voyage from the United Arab Emirates to Kenya. Pirates in three small vessels hijacked the ship and five crew members over one hundred miles off the coast of Somalia.
UN action would include consenting to naval ships operating in the Indian Ocean, entering the country's territorial waters when engaging in operations against pirates or suspected pirates and armed robbers endangering the safety of life at sea, in particular the safety of crews on board ships carrying World Food Programme humanitarian aid to Somalia or leaving Somali ports after having discharged their cargo.
The Council authorised the secretary general to take action in accordance with his proposal.
"The continuing incidents of acts of piracy and armed robbery in waters off the coast of Somalia is of great concern to IMO member states, the IMO secretariat and to me personally," Mr Mitropoulos said. "The Council's endorsement of this high-level approach will help considerably in alleviating the situation, especially if support and assistance to ships is enhanced; and if administrations and the shipping industry implement effectively the guidance that IMO has issued and the notices promulgated regularly by naval operations centres."
In the statement, IMO said the continuing instability in Somalia has given rise to renewed attacks on ships and a worrying increase in the number of reported incidents, including attacks on ships carrying humanitarian aid to the country chartered by the World Food Programme.
Mr Mitropoulos said that a new request from the UN Security Council would be in line with the UN Security Council's Presidential Statement of March, 15 last year.
The number of reported attacks on ships off the coast of Somalia in 2005 prompted the IMO Assembly to adopt resolution A.979(24), by means of which the matter was first brought to the attention of the UN Security Council.
There had been a reduction in acts of piracy and armed robbery off Somalia due, to a large extent, to the support provided by naval ships in the region.
However, as a result of the renewed rise in attacks on ships in recent months, IMO has lately taken a number of steps, including intensifying its co-ordination mechanism with WFP and navies operating in the region, with a view to ensuring that the tracking of and, where necessary, the provision of assistance to merchant shipping is maintained and further strengthened.
IMO has also recently issued a Maritime Safety Committee circular (MSC.1/Circ.1233) warning maritime interests of what continues to be a worrying situation off Somalia and inviting governments and organisations concerned to implement effectively the guidance to administrations, industry and crew issued previously by IMO.
Additionally, in the context of the UN Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea, IMO is seeking to include, within this year's related General Assembly resolution, a renewed call for all concerned to continue their co-operation in combating acts of piracy and armed robbery and in ensuring the early release of ships and persons held hostage as a consequence of such acts.
Somalia is not alone though, as Nigeria is hot on its heels and is deemed to have the second highest number of incidents, said Andrew Mwangura, co-ordinator of the Mombasa based Seafarers Assistance Programme said.
He said among the reasons for violence in the Delta region are, "a lack of basic facilities, resentment towards foreign companies and governmental corruption."
He added that the would-be hijackers are often better equipped and have greater knowledge of the Niger Delta than the military forces charged with thwarting them.
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Mr Mwangura said of the recent increase in pirate attacks off the Horn of Africa:
"The increasing piracy and armed attacks on shipping are creating a rising reluctance among ship owners and crews to make voyages to Somali ports."
A Kenyan company, Motaku Shipping Agencies, has suffered on several occasions at the hands of the pirates in Somalia in the recent past.
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