Tanker Hijaked!

European Naval Forces recently reported that a chemical tanker with a north Korean crew was hijacked of the coast of Somalia. The ship, owned by virgin islands company and operating out of Singapore was seized 180 miles from the Seychelles on Monday as it sailed for Kenya. The ship has been turned around by its captors and is currently sailing north. The government of Somalia has been unable to stop pirate attacks such as this and thus western countries have had to step up their pirate patrols. The number of attempted attacks have increased this year, however due to greater patrol numbers the amount of successful attacks has dramatically dropped. The entirety of 2008 saw some 293 attacks, while 306 have occurred in the first nine months of 2009 nine alone. Of these attacks Somali pirates have been successful in capturing 32 vessels, 533 hostages with 8 others wounded, 4 others killed and 1 other missing.


I am surprised that this is still going on, if it is so well known that the pirates are coming from Somalia then there should be even more patrols and greater numbers of police in the major ports of Somalia. For the people on the ships i think there should be protective weaponry or a security team on board so as to protect the lives and the resources. I am very surprised however that there have been so many more attacks in the first 9 months then all last year, because if there are more patrols and less successes one would assume motivation would decrease.