Monsoon helps fight Somali pirates

Crime: Only three ships following EU guidelines commandeered this year

Pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia are likely to pick up again in September when the southwest monsoon ceases to kick up waves in the Indian Ocean, said the commander of the European Union’s anti-piracy fleet.

After peaking in April, attacks by Somali pirates have dropped off in the past two months, with one boat being seized so far in June.

“I’d argue that we have made great progress in deterring the pirates, but weather has also played a role,” Rear Adm. Peter Hudson, commander of the EU’s 12-warship Atalanta fleet, said in an interview. “I would not be surprised to see more attacks when the monsoon eases, and we’ll have to be ready to reallocate our resources.” During the monsoon, the waves can reach 13 feet.

Somali pirates have attacked ships 126 times so far this year, successfully taking 27 vessels. About half of those seizures were concentrated in April, when pirates avoided the cluster of warships in the Gulf of Aden and started operating hundreds of miles off Somalia’s eastern coast. In response, Atalanta extended its zone of operations to the Seychelles, an area of 2 million square miles.

Attacks decreased in May as the southwest monsoon brought seas too rough for the pirates’ skiffs.

Underlining the weather’s importance, the command room and hallways of the Atalanta operational headquarters in Northwood, north of London, have Indian Ocean weather maps alongside the maps and computer screens showing the position of merchant ships and gunboats.

One map shows winds in the Indian Ocean reaching 40 knots in July and August, up from 20 to 25 knots in April and May. Pirates still are operating in the sheltered Gulf of Aden, a choke point for the 25,000 ships a year, carrying 20 percent of global trade, which transit the Suez Canal, said Hudson, who is from the British Navy and attached the EU mission. That also is where the EU, the U.S., and a dozen other nations have stationed the bulk of the 24 warships in the area.

“The presence of so many naval assets made life pretty uncomfortable for them in the Gulf of Aden, which is why they started striking out further into the Indian Ocean,” said Rear Admiral Thorsten Kaehler of the German Navy, Hudson’s deputy.

Of the 27 ships seized so far this year, only three had followed Atalanta guidelines of alerting military ships to their presence and sticking to a 490-mile security corridor that the EU has set up through the Gulf of Aden, said Simon Church, head of business development for Wilhelmsen ASA, a Norwegian shipping company.

Source: The News Tribune