On 17 August 2021, the global shipping and oil industries announced an agreement to reduce the boundaries of the piracy High Risk Area (HRA) in the Indian Ocean as incidents in the region have been decreasing in the last five years. The changes came into effect on the 1st of September 2021 and reduced the…
On the occasion of the presentation of its annual report to the 12th Nautical Forum, the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) confirmed a 32% increase of piracy and armed robbery in actual incidents in Asian waters in 2020, compared to 2019. The increase of incidents was…
The year 2020 has proved to be a critical year also on the maritime security front, namely in West Africa. Indeed, the Annual IMB ICC Report for 2020 shows a 40% increase in the number of kidnappings reported in the Gulf of Guinea in the first nine months of 2020 compared with the same period in…
The European Council has prolonged the mandates of Operation ATALANTA, and of its two Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions – EUTM Somalia and EUCAP Somalia – until the 31st of December 2022. The decision of the Council aims to strengthen maritime security at large in Somalia and the Horn of Africa. Since its…
On 16 November, pirates kidnapped five Ghanaians from the cargo ship AM DELTA, 35 nautical miles from the Agbano terminals in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria. According to initial investigations, six or seven pirates boarded the Ghanaian ship 44 nautical miles from South Brass. This is the 9th such incident in November alone. Including…
Satellite imagery have revealed a likely bunker spill from one of the four vessels that were attacked near Fujairah emirate, in the gulf of Oman on 12 May.[1] The damaged ship is Bahri’s very large crude carrier (VLCC) Amjad. This maritime route is particularly critical, as Fujairah is the only Emirati terminal located on the…
Between 21 and 23 April, a suspected pirate gang attacked one Korean and one Spanish fishing vessels off the Somali coast, before being apprehended by EU NAVFOR Atalanta. These were the first attempted pirate attacks off the Horn of Africa since October last year. The suspected pirates hijacked a Yemeni dhow on 19 April and…
The in-depth analysis elaborated by the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) was divulgated at the occasion of the High-Level Conference on Oceans that took place in Brussels on 19 March 2019. The paper addresses the most pressing challenges in relation to maritime security: piracy and armed robbery at sea. Africa is particularly vulnerable to these…
In February 2019, the Information Sharing Centre (ISC) of the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) reported three incidents of armed robbery at sea in Asia. The incidents occurred respectively at Belawan anchorage in Indonesia, at Caofeidian anchorage in China and in the Singapore Strait. The number…
