Piracy Situation Risk Assessment, November 2014, Issue 31 Highlights of the Past Month:
Last month has seen increasing level of piracy related incidents. On Indian Ocean region at least 9 suspicious cases were officially reported. The authorities are also concerned on the rise of the suspicious approaches in Gulf of Oman. West Africa has had significant rise of violence and kidnapping near Bayelsa State, Nigeria. At least 6 attacks, some with fatalities, have been reported. South China Sea region counted at least 23 incidents, including another large scale oil cargo theft near Malaysia.
The suspicious approaches in Gulf of Aden and Southern Red Sea are following the similar pattern as in previous months. No attempt of attacks have been reported but the crew has sighted weapons and ladders in some cases. After warnings it becomes common that the skiffs with potential pirates still follow the vessel, possibly to assess the seriousness of the protection.
On October 8, the product tanker Sri Kandi 515 left Sampit, Kalimantan, Indonesia laden with 3,100-tonne palm oil cargo. The vessel was en route to Gresik, East Java, but it did not show up as scheduled. Two weeks later, on Oct 24 Malaysian fishermen picked up tanker’s crew of 11 on floating in life raft and took them to Chendering, Malaysia. According to their story, on October 9, their vessel was hijacked by pirates. The eyes of the 11 men were blindfolded, they were taken in captivity and were locked for 13 days. After almost a forthright, the pirates disembarked the Sri Kandi 515's crew on a life raft (or boat) with water and food supplies. Their vessel disappeared, search is ongoing. Aburgus comment: This is likely that the tanker was pirated for the next cargo thefts from larger tankers as the trend is looming now in the region.
Al-Qaeda chiefs have called on militants to destroy tankers bound for the west by ramming them with boats laden with explosives or by hijacking the ships and running them aground. An attack would cause "phenomenal" reaction around the world and help ramp up oil prices, shipping rates and maritime insurance as well as military spending. British oil workers in the Middle East are also legitimate targets according to the new Al Qaeda magazine, Resurgence, released last week.
Ebola shows no signs of downsizing. It would be wrong to believe that crews and vessels not travelling to the infected countries are safe from possible infection. The World Health Organization is pointing out that it is possible that fleeing migrants may be infected with Ebola and as the disease continues to spread with cases currently doubling every 20 days, the number of people fleeing West Africa is massively increasing and the danger level similarly. Therefore ship operators need to be aware of an increased risk of stowaways and a higher probability of ships encountering fleeing migrants if/when crews’ are forced to engage in search and rescue at sea around West and also North Africa.
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