Pirates have hijacked an oil tanker off the coast of Somalia, officials say, marking the first hijacking of a large merchant vessel on the crucial global trade route since the height of Somali piracy in 2012.
The armed men are demanding a ransom for the release of the oil tanker, the European Union anti-piracy operation in the region announced late Tuesday.
The hijacking came as a surprise to the global shipping industry, since international measures have suppressed Somali pirate hijackings in the last five years. But who are these pirates, what are their motives, and why did they come back out of the blue?
Who are Somalia’s pirates?
Pirates have been around for thousands of years, but they became a global problem when the Somali Democratic Republic collapsed in 1991, according to Ohio State University. When the government in Mogadishu was overthrown, Somalia’s navy fell apart. It left the country’s coast line vulnerable and became a hot spot for illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste, the report says. The fishermen in the area then decided to take matters into their own hands, in what they claim was a threat to their food supply.
“There was a lot of illegal fishing going on and that was always the moral justification that Somali pirates used to hijack vessels. Then there were a number of attacks on foreign vessels and once pirates started to learn that there was money to be made, there was a rapid increase in attacks on large merchant vessels. That’s when the crisis started to happen,” Ben Lawellin said, of Oceans Beyond Piracy, an NGO focused on responding to maritime piracy.
Since 2010, pirates took in more than $100 million in ransom money, according to Oceans Beyond Piracy. Piracy costs the global commercial shipping industry between $10-12 billion a year, and that’s not including the many attacks on smaller fishing vessels that don’t get reported.
What are their motives?
Lawellin argues that money is behind piracy. Somali pirates usually take merchant ships hostage and hold them and their crews for ransom, Lawellin said. They operate outside a country’s territorial waters.
And in the last couple of years, it has evolved to “weapon smuggling” and “human trafficking,” Lawellin added.
“Today, it is organized crime.”
When piracy was at its peak, there was a large international response and in the late 2011. There was a deployment of international naval forces and an adoption of safety measures such as avoiding high risk areas, having armed guards on board and installing barb wire on exteriors of ships.
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Since then, there was a drop in successful attacks, Lawellin added. It became increasingly hard for pirates to hijack vessels, hence their reason for evolving their “business model.”
Why did they come back out of the blue?
Monday’s incident off the coast of Somalia marks the first hijacking of a large commercial vessel since 2012. So why did they come back after five years? Some experts say it’s because forces in the region had let down their guard, since the situation had calmed down.
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But the United Nations warned in October that the situation was fragile. “Credible reports indicate that Somali pirates possess the intent and capability to resume attacks against large commercial ships, should the opportunity present itself,” read the UN report.
A few months later, NATO ended its anti-piracy mission off Somalia.
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Lawellin argues that pirates took advantage of the more lax environment. “If people aren’t seeing the attack of vessels, then there is less incentive to have protective measures,” Lawellin said.
He argues there is a need to shut down the “criminal networks” of pirates to really get at the root of the problem.
Since piracy has lessened in recent years after an international effort to patrol near Somalia, concerns about piracy off Africa’s coast have largely shifted to the Gulf of Guinea.
With files from the Associated Press and Nick Logan, Global News.
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