Ocean cargo/global logistics: International Maritime Organization says piracy is a global issue

The alarming escalation in incidents of attacks on merchant ships had been a dominant and unwelcome theme throughout the past biennium
Patrick Burnson -- Logistics Management, 11/24/2009
From Logistics Management.


LONDON—The 26th Assembly of the International Maritime Organization, IMO, meets here at its headquarters this week, and piracy is top of mind.
In his opening address, Secretary-General Efthimios E. Mitropoulos said that the alarming escalation in incidents of piracy and armed attacks on merchant ships had been a dominant and unwelcome theme throughout the past biennium, with the recent upsurge in pirate activity off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden, and now beyond the Horn of Africa and in the wider expanses of the western Indian Ocean, turning this phenomenon into a global issue.

“I consider it imperative that we, in the maritime community, re-double our efforts to combat piracy in all its forms, bearing in mind that it is not a cause, but a symptom,” Mitropoulos said.

In repressing acts of piracy and robbery against ships in the affected waters, IMO has worked closely with the United Nations (including the Security Council, the World Food Program and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime) and with various intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations (both global and regional, such as the African Union and the League of Arab States), as well as with political and defence entities (such as the European Union, NATO and the Combined Maritime Forces).
As reported in LM, the number of reported piracy attacks off East Africa rose astronomically in the past two years.

“Barely a day seemed to pass without a new incident being reported,” noted IMO spokesmen.

Figures compiled by IMO show that, in the first quarter of 2008, there were 11 piracy attacks in that region, rising to 23 in the second quarter and rocketing to 50 in the third and 51 in the fourth quarters, making a total of 135 attacks during 2008, resulting in 44 ships having been seized by pirates and more than 600 seafarers having been kidnapped and held for ransom.
Coinciding with this meeting came an announcement by CMA CGM that it plans to increase its piracy risk surcharge for transporting containers through the Gulf of Aden next month.

Spokesmen said that the transit of cargo vessels through the Gulf of Aden in both directions is subject to high costs caused by the prevailing risks of piracy in the area.

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