From FIDI Magazine Apr/May 2013 by John Luker
Piracy has its roots in ancient Greece, 2000 years ago, when sea robbers threatened the Greek rade routes and it has continued through time to today. It flourished between 1620 and 1720, as romanticised in the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise, until we get to the modern era and the highly publicised Somali pirates, who have been very active over the past five years.
In total, worldwide numbers of actual and attempted attacks on ships increased from 263 in 2007 to 439 in 2011. However only 13o were attributed to Somalia, suggesting that while Somali piracy is on the decline, it is still a significant problem in the rest of the world.
There has been considerable internationa resource dedicated to this issue, with approximately three dozen warships from the royal Navy the U.S. Navy, EU countries, NATO, Russia, China and INdia currently patrolling more than one million square miles of sea.
With the collaborative work being carried out by these international organisations, it is no surprise that reports of piracy attacks have dropped.
Earlier this year, one of Somalia’s most notorious pirate leaders announced his ‘retirement’, a possible indication that the Somali pirates are starting to realize that piracy is perhaps not as lucrative as it once was.
However, reports provided by the International Maritime Bureau show that piracy is a trade plied in many places and where it stops or reduces in one place, it will increase in another. The coast of Nigeria has seen an increasing number of reported attacks, many violent, with pirates striking as far as 120 nautical miles from the coast.