Ann Griffiths, 30 October 2020. There’s an interesting article published by the Lowy Institute that looks at the growing threat of “insurgency, radicalism and major power competition in the Western Indian Ocean.” And it looks at these matters from the perspective of South Africa. There’s an unfortunate confluence of forces […]
Piracy
40 posts
[*This article was original published in the May 2013 issue of Marine Matters. It is reprinted here with the permission of the publisher, Mr. Aldert van Nieuwkoop.] Piracy has been a fact of the maritime world since ancient times. Merchantships are the products, conveyors and producers of great wealth. They […]
Moves to incorporate the rights of detained Somali children suspected of working with pirate groups into ship security standards, have received a cautious response. Canada’s Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative is spearheading the move, in discussion with the shipping and maritime security industries (see IHS Maritime Fairplay, 6 June 2013). […]
In an article published by Fairplay Magazine, entitled “Target: Child Pirates,” author Girjia Shettar explores the work being done by the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative and the Dalhousie Marine Piracy Project (DMPP) on the phenomenon of child maritime piracy. It is likely no coincidence that the countries which are […]
In March 2011, Indian naval forces operating in the Arabian Sea captured the Mozambique-flagged fishing vessel Vega 5. Somali pirates had kidnapped the trawler’s original crew several months earlier. They subsequently refurbished the stolen craft into an operationally significant ‘mothership’. Of the 61 marauders who were arrested during the Indian […]
The Child Soldiers Initiative, directed by Dr. Shelly Whitman at Dalhousie University, has released a groundbreaking report entitled Children and Youth in Marine Piracy: Causes, Consequences and the Way Forward. The report can be downloaded from their website under Publications or by going directly to the document here. The report […]
A safe and secure ocean commons has been a goal for decades. Initiatives to achieve this tend to have their roots in significant events that become forcing functions for change. For example, attention was focused on the security of ships and ports immediately after the 2001 attacks in New York […]
On 23 March, Jeremy Binnie, Jane's Defence Weekly Middle East/Africa Editor in London, reported that the EU had expanded the area of operations for the EU Naval Force (EUNAVFOR) counter-piracy mission to include Somali coastal territory and internal waters. Binnie’s opinion is that EUNAVFOR would attempt to “disrupt pirate logistics […]
Last week saw Qatar host the second Doha International Maritime Defence Exhibition and Conference (DIMDEX). The event gave companies in the maritime security field the opportunity to show off their goods and services to a wide audience of international and regional naval personnel. On display were ships from Pakistan, India, […]
The Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) of the British parliament has published its tenth report, entitled “Piracy off the coast of Somalia.” You can read the report here. The report notes that, while the establishment of the safety transit corridor has made the Gulf of Aden reasonably safe, their concentration of effort […]