Global maritime piracy watchdog; the International Maritime Bureau released its 2016 reports on global piracy attacks. The IMB, in the report noted that the number of maritime kidnappings hit a 10-year high in 2016. It also reported that, pirate attacks off-Nigeria coastline rose from 14 in 2015 to a shocking 36 last year.
According to the body, while the number of pirate attacks has declined in recent years, 62 people worldwide were kidnapped for ransom at sea last year compared to only 19 in 2015 and nine in 2014.
Noel Choong, head of the IMB’s Kuala Lumpur-based Piracy Reporting Centre, said groups linked to militants were carrying out the kidnappings, particularly off West Africa and in the Sulu Sea.
Despite the rise in kidnappings, the number of overall pirate attacks continued to fall due to better policing and ships taking more precautions. A total of 191 cases of piracy on the high seas were recorded in 2016 compared to 246 in 2015.
World piracy has been on the decline since 2012 after international naval patrols were launched off East Africa in response to a spate of violent assaults by Somali-based pirates and others. The number of cases has also plummeted off Indonesia thanks to more efficient patrols.
The continued fall in piracy is good news but certain shipping routes remain dangerous, and the escalation of crew kidnapping is a worrying trend in some emerging areas,” said Pottengal Mukundan, Director of IMB.
In addition to the Sulu Sea, the Gulf of Guinea (Where Nigeria belongs) was a kidnap hotspot, with 34 crew taken in nine incidents last year. Peru, which had a clean sheet in 2015, saw 11 pirate incidents last year, 10 of them at its main port of Callao.