Somali pirates turn violent —study

OVER 4,000 international seafarers were violently attacked by Somali pirates last year, says a new report, signalling the rising human cost of piracy.

The Human Cost of Somali Piracy report states that seafarers captured by Somali pirates have faced beatings, been used as human shields and undergone other forms of torture over the past year.

The findings indicate that in the course of 2010, some 4,185 seafarers were attacked with firearms and rocket propelled grenades, 1,090 seafarers were taken hostage and 516 seafarers were used as human shields.

However, despite the violent nature of these crimes, the new study says the human cost of piracy is still under-reported and misunderstood. “There is very little reporting of the personal violence against seafarers in the waters off Somalia,” says Kaija Hurlburt, the lead researcher.

New methods of torture

Per Gullestrup, the C.E.O. of a shipping company, the Clipper Group said, “Somali piracy has a tendency to be discussed in economic terms, but the real issue is the untold misery and trauma imposed on our colleagues at sea and their relatives by the criminals.’’

The report said seafarers were sometimes locked in freezers, hung from ships’ masts or meat hooks or had their genitals attached to electric wires. Pirates also sometimes called seafarers’ families from their mobile phones, then beat them in their families’ hearing —a tactic to increase pressure on ship owners to pay ransoms.

The new tactics break a previous code of conduct, that had kept violence to a minimum. This year has seen the first deliberate murders of hostages off Somalia – four American tourists in February and two crew members from the Beluga Nomination in January.

The pirates’ change of tactics reflects the shift of activity away from the relatively easily monitored Gulf of Aden to attacks off the East African coast and in the Indian Ocean.

The tactical shift has seen pirates capturing merchant vessels and forcing their crew to let their ships be used as floating bases for attacks.

Pirates typically deter international naval forces’ efforts to intercept the mother ships by parading captive seafarers on deck with guns held to their heads.

t with seafarers knows that there are crew members who just can’t face the daily risk any longer,” he said.

Source: The East African