"What Happened To The Somali Pirates?" Topic

"With little more than skiffs, ladders, and Kalashnikovs, the pirates of Somalia once hijacked giant cargo ships, extracted millions of dollars in ransom, and forced the world's navies to send warships steaming to the Gulf of Aden. They stole headlines and Hollywood's imagination as khat-chewing villains in the hit film Captain Phillips.

But after wreaking havoc in the sea lanes off the Horn of Africa, with more than 200 attacks every year at their peak, the once-notorious Somali pirates have virtually vanished. No cargo ship has been successfully hijacked off the coast of Somalia since the spring of 2012. This year, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) reported only three incidents.

Defeating Somalia's scourge of piracy required unprecedented cooperation by different navies, efforts to boost stability ashore, and, perhaps most importantly, the use of armed guards on commercial vessels, a radical break with shipping practices and tradition…"
More here
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Amicalement
Armand

Huh, how 'bout that. Seems concerns about Freedom of the Seas pays off in the long run…..

Maybe the pirates are out of their Depp. It is good that effective counter-measures ate being deployed.

They be cast upon a lee shore, the lubbers.

Armed protection works.

Yep … an easy fix that some tried to dismiss, etc., … For no good reasons, IMO. They attack in little motor boats or less. With maybe the biggest weapon being an RPG. And no one could work out the Maritime Laws, etc., to put arms or armed personnel onboard to sink these little pirates before they got close. As we see combined Navies from many countries sank the Sami pirate problem.

Some railed about they were doing this because the West and others we overfishing their waters. So they had to turn to crime to feed their families … yeah … right ? As we later saw this was many times a local organized crime effort to make $$$$ … period.

And again, how much aid was going into the region to feed it's starving masses ? From many NGOs and nations, etc., … As we saw with what lead up to the Blackhawk Down incident. The food, medical, etc., was there. But the tribes, criminals, warlords, etc., we too busy fighting over it. To exploit the tragedy even more.

So I have not sympathy for "Sami Pirates" or Warlords, etc., … I'm just sorry Aidid died of cancer(?) and not a burst from Delta or SEAL operators' M4. [Like another scum bag – UBL]

And as we see Somali is still unstable like many others in Africa. As they have been for decades … But aid of all manner for many sources continues to flow. Hopefully it is doing some good. In some cases it appears so …

there are now several companies offering 'professional protection escort services' = armed mercenaries – they get the contracts set in advanced – meet the ship in international waters and board – then get off once past the areas of high piracy activity still in international waters- some services offer armed trailing boats to intercept any pirates – that it all happens in international waters avoids most legal entanglements – has been very effective as the pirates don't want to fight

Yes, I have heard that … And yes it does appear effective with combating pirates. As Naval vessels can't be everywhere. Where the "professionals" will be on board to keep the pirates off. Or in armed escorts. As pointed out …

It is always a good idea to wear protection!

Amen !!!!

It also immensely helped that commercial shipping in the region turned off their transponders that fed straight to the internet.

There are online ship tracking sites that show exact locations of ships (vesseltracker.com etc). The pirates were using these to pinpoint location of ships.

Once it went down they lost their main source of intel.

Its a shame Yardarms aren't used anymore.

I think they live in Minnesota now.

I was going to post the same thing, 14Bore.

A terrible pity some naval traditions are no longer in vogue.