02 Piracy today
The 21st century: Today's pirates use state-of-the-art weapons instead of cutlasses and canons. They comb coastal waters in high-speed boats. Surprise is the most important element in their raids. In many cases, they come aboard disguised as coastguards or harbour police. Modern pirates operate both in ports and on the open sea. Their crimes range from simple theft to stealing entire ships and murder.
New trends
Attacks on barges and barge trains are becoming more frequent. These are quickly altered in their outward appearance and usually carry goods that sell easily. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of cases in which a ship is hijacked and a ransom demanded for the vessel and/or the crew. The Somali coast is considered a particularly dangerous area in this respect. Pirates also attack private yachts off the usual commercial shipping routes.
Traditionally high-risk regions include the Caribbean, the Philippines, the China Sea, the Somali coast, and the Gulf of Aden.
Terrorism at sea
Piracy is increasingly being linked with terrorist attacks at sea. 80% of the world's cargo is carried by sea. It often has to pass through narrow stretches of water, such as the Straits of Malacca or the Suez Canal. Even a partial blockage of these passages would have a serious impact on world trade and generate additional costs in the order of billions of euros.
Number of attacks
Between 1991 and 1994, the number remained fairly constant at around 100 cases per year but then shot up. The IMB registered 469 cases in 2000. The number of attacks temporarily declined on account of the increased activities in the war on terror following 11 September and as a result of the tsunami catastrophe in December 2004, but there is no reason to sound the all-clear. The growing number of kidnappings is particularly horrifying. No fewer than 156 hostages were taken between January and June 2006, compared with only 31 in the same period in 2005.
The statistics are very imprecise, however, because many instances of pirate attacks are not reported at all. The IMB Piracy Reporting Centre assumes the number of cases reported to represent only 50% of the true figure.
Regions at risk
80% of all registered attacks occur inside territorial waters, i.e. near the coast. Where piracy is concerned, regional growth trends are always directly related to economic crises and inadequate legal and security systems. Let us take Somalia as an example. When the Barre regime was deposed in the early 1990s, the state lost control of its own coastal waters. The power vacuum that developed provides excellent conditions for maritime raids. Situations like this make it clear that national and international jurisdiction play a decisive part in combating piracy.