Cost of Somali Piracy Declines; Piracy in West Africa Continues to Rise
May 9, 2014 in Somalia
According to the latest Oceans Beyond Piracy report, the cost of Somali piracy to the global economy fell by almost half last year as attacks in the region continued to decline. However piracy in West Africa continued to rise.
Somali Piracy
According to the Oceans Beyond Piracy report, attacks carried out by Somali pirates in 2013 continued to decline, with only 23 vessels being attacked throughout the past year. While no large vessels transiting the region were successfully attacked or hijacked, the threat of piracy to regional traffic remains high.
Armed security teams aboard vessels in the Indian Ocean were relatively prevalent on those vessels reporting suspect activity: 100 vessels out of 145 reporting suspicious approaches had security teams aboard, as did 10 out of the 19 vessels that reported attacks. Furthermore, twenty-seven of the 100 vessels with security teams aboard during suspicious approaches reported firing warning shots in a bid to deter suspicious approaches, while eight out of ten vessels with security teams on board during attacks reported exchanging fire with pirates.
The latest annual security report put the total cost of Somali piracy at US $3.2 billion (£1.88 billion) in 2013. Over the past year, there were still at least fifty hostages being held captive in Somalia.
At the height of Somali pirate attacks in 2011, up to a dozen or more merchant vessels were being held captive at any one time as pirate gangs awaited to receive multimillion-dollar ransom payments. While Somali piracy was by far the largest single threat to international shipping in recent years, the increase of international navies in the region, coupled with embarked security teams on board vessels transiting the High Risk Area (HRA), has resulted in a sharp decline in pirate attacks, with the last successful hijacking of a merchant vessel occurring two years ago. However this decline is easily reversible. Furthermore, this decline in Somali piracy has effectively paved the way for a new region to take over the status of being a piracy hot spot.
West African Piracy
For the second year in a row, the number of piracy attacks in West Africa was greater than that in the Indian Ocean. According to statistics provided by Oceans Beyond Piracy, an estimated 100 attacks occurred off West Africa in 2013. This included 42 hostage-taking attacks and 58 robbery attempts.
In the past year, the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa has developed into the new piracy threat to international shipping, however pirate and criminal gangs operating in the region greatly differ from those groups operating in the Gulf of Aden. Reports of piracy attacks, kidnappings and hijackings in the Gulf of Guinea have demonstrated that piracy in the region are more violent then those seen in waters off Somalia. According to the new Oceans Beyond Piracy, analysts have observed “…a high degree of violence in this region,” adding that “the constantly evolving tactics of West African piracy make it extremely difficult to isolate it from other elements of organized crime.”
While providing accurate statistics for the Gulf of Guinea continues to be difficult, mainly due to incomplete reporting, it is evident that there was a rise in the number of seafarers who were kidnapped in the region last year.
Deadly Ebola Virus Spreads to Liberia and Mali
April 4, 2014 in Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Senegal, Sierra LeoneThe first cases of the Ebola virus have been confirmed in Liberia, after spreading from neighboring Guinea, where the deadly virus has already killed eighty-four people. Meanwhile in Mali, officials are on high alert after three suspected cases were reported near the border area with Guinea.
Fears Virus Has Spread to Mali
Officials in Mali on Thursday indicated that they had detected three suspected victims of the Ebola virus, the deadly disease that has killed 84 people in Guinea. Speaking to reporters in Bamako, Mali’s Health Minister Ousmane Kone stated that “three suspected cases of hemorrhagic fever have been detected in the country. Samples have been taken and sent abroad for analysis.” The Health Minister added that pending results from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where the samples were sent, the patients were isolated and were receiving appropriate medication. A statement issued by the government has indicated that the patients’ condition was currently improving and that the results of the tests will be made public as soon as they are known.
Ebola Outbreak Confirmed in Liberia
Seven new patients has brought the total suspected Ebola cases in Liberia to fourteen. Since reporting its first case of the hemorrhagic fever last month, six people have died, however officials in Liberia indicated Thursday that the first suspected Ebola case is now thought to be unconnected to the ongoing epidemic in neighboring Guinea, noting that the case may have originated separately within its borders.
According to Liberia’s chief medical officer Bernice Dahn, “we have a case in Tapeta where a hunter who has not had any contact with anyone coming from Guinea got sick,” adding “he was rushed to the hospital and died 30 minutes later. He never had any interaction with someone suspected to be a carrier of the virus and he has never gone to Guinea. This is an isolated case.” If confirmed, the case in the eastern town of Tapeta would mark a worrying development in the fight against Ebola, as cases so far have been attributed to people returning with the infection from neighboring Guinea, where 84 people have died. Tapeta, a small town in the eastern country of Nimba, is located 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in southern Guinea. It is also at least a five-hour drive and much further from the border than other suspected cases.
Of the six deaths, two were laboratory-confirmed Ebola cases – a woman who died in hospital in the northern county of Lofa and her sister who visited her. The sister was allowed to return home to Monrovia before being hospitalized in the nearby Firestone Hospital. Local authorities had isolated her and were monitoring her, her family and others with whom she may have had contact however Mr Dahn has since indicated that “…after being confirmed Ebola virus positive, the lady died this morning.” He added that “we are now keeping surveillance on 44 people who have been in contact with the cases reported.” The fruit bat, which is thought to be the host of the highly contagious Ebola virus, is a delicacy in the region that straddles Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with experts suspecting huntsmen to be the source of the outbreak.
Guinea Outbreak
The outbreak in Guinea had initially centered in the country’s remote south-eastern Forest Region of Nzerekore, where it took officials six weeks to identify the disease, effectively allowing it to spread over the borders and into the more populous regions of the country. The first symptoms experienced were of a feverish sickness and they were observed on February 9. The mysterious disease claimed at least 23 lives, out of a total of 36, before officials were able to identify it. Since then, the outbreak has continued to spread, with officials confirming last week that it had spread to the capital, Conakry, which is a sprawling city of two million.
On Sunday, Guinea’s Health Ministry indicated that the country was now dealing with 122 “suspicious cases” of viral hemorrhagic fever, including at least 80 deaths. However not all of the cases have been confirmed as the Ebola virus. Medical Charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has since stated that the Ebola outbreak in Guinea is “unprecedented,” adding that the spread of the disease across the country made it very difficult to control. Guinea is now facing a battle to contain the outbreak after cases were reported in areas that are hundreds of kilometers apart.
Regional Concern
Over the past weekend, there has been a growing concern that the outbreak of the deadly virus may spread throughout West Africa. According to Tarik Jasarevic, spokesman for the WHO, up to 400 people are identified as potential Ebola contacts in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Fears of the virus spreading further into West Africa prompted officials in Senegal to close the country’s normally busy border with Guinea. Senegal’s Health Minister Awa Maria Coll-Seck confirmed Monday that the government had decided to close its border with Guinea after receiving confirmation that the virus had reached the country’s capital city Conakry. According to Ms Coll-Seck, Senegal has also “…closed all weekly markets, known as luma, in the south. And we’re having some discussions with religious leaders regarding big religious events.”
Officials in Sierra Leone also reported last week some suspected cases of the Ebola virus however these have not yet been confirmed.
The Ebola virus, which is one of the world’s most virulent diseases, was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 1976. The DRC has since had eight outbreaks of the disease, with the most recent epidemic, which occurred in the DRC between May and November 2012, infecting 62 people and leaving 34 dead. Although there have been previous outbreaks amongst humans in Uganda, the Republic of Congo and Gabon, the disease had never before been detected in people in West Africa. There have also been fears that the disease could one day be used in a biological weapons attack as, according to researches, the virus multiplies quickly, overwhelming the immune system’s ability to fight the infection.
If all cases in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Mali and Liberia are confirmed to be Ebola, this outbreak would be the most deadly epidemic since 187 people died in Luebo, in the Congo’s Kasai Orientale province in 2007.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), to date, no treatment or vaccine is available for Ebola, which kills between 25 and 90 percent of those who fall sick, depending on the strain of the virus. The Zaire strain of Ebola, which has a 90 percent death rate, is the one that has been detected in Guinea.
Piracy at Lowest Level in Six Years; Westgate Trial Commences in Kenya
January 15, 2014 in Kenya, Piracy, SomaliaPiracy at sea is at its lowest level in six years, with 264 attacks recorded, a 40% drop since Somali piracy peaked in 2011.
The drop in worldwide piracy attacks has greatly been due to the dramatic drop of incidents recorded in waters off Somalia. In 2013, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) reported fifteen incidents off Somalia. According to its records, this is down from 75 in 2012 and 237 in 2011. The increase of armed guards on vessels, coupled with international navy patrols and the “stabilizing influence” of Somalia’s government have aided in deterring pirate. According to Pottengal Mukundan, IMB’s director, “the single biggest reason for the drop in worldwide piracy is the decrease in Somali piracy off the coast of East Africa,” adding that “it is imperative to continue combined international efforts to tackle Somali piracy. Any complacency at this stage could re-kindle pirate activity.”
The IMB’s annual global piracy report has indicated that more than 300 people were taken hostage at sea in 2013 and 21 were injured, nearly all with guns or knives.
Examining global piracy figures, Indonesia witnessed the most pirate attacks last year, accounting for more than 50 of all reported incidents. However it must be noted that attacks in waters of Indonesia were “low-level opportunistic thefts, not to be compared with the more serious incidents off Africa.” Piracy off West Africa made up 19% of attacks worldwide in 2013. According to the IMB report, Nigerian pirates accounted for 31 of the region’s 51 attacks. These attacks were “particularly violent,” with one crew member killed, and thirty-six people kidnapped and held onshore for ransom.
In November 2013, a United Nations and World Bank report indicated that pirates operating off the Horn of Africa, which are some of the world’s busiest shipping and humanitarian aid routes, had netted more than US $400 million (£251 million) in ransom money between 2005 and 2012.
Meanwhile in neighboring Kenya, the trial of four men charged over the Westgate shopping centre siege began in Kenya’s capital Nairobi.
The four suspected foreigners have denied the charges of aiding a “terrorist group,” and of being in Kenya illegally. However none of the men – named as Mohammed Ahmed Abdi, Liban Abdullah, Adnan Ibrahim, and Hussein Hassan – have been accused of being the gunmen who carried out the attack. While their nationalities have not been disclosed, they are said to be ethnic Somalis.
Police officials in Kenya have also indicated that the four accused had sheltered the attackers in their homes in Eastleigh a Somali neighbourhood in Nairobi, and that they were in contact with the gunmen four days prior to the siege being carried out.
During the first day of the trial, the court heard testimony from security guards who saw what happened when the gunmen launched the attack in September 2013, killing at least sixty-seven people. During his testimony, guard Stephen Juma told the court that he had been directing traffic outside the upmarket shopping centre when a car pulled up and three men jumped out. According to Mr Juma, one of them immediately shot dead a shopper, adding that “I began to hear gunshots, I made a radio call for help while running to the main entrance.” Mr Juma further noted that he could not identify any of the gunmen as their heads and faces had been covered with black headscarves.
The four are the first to be charged over the attack, which was the worst in Kenya since 224 people were killed in the 1998 bombing of the US embassy. Reports have indicated that around forty witnesses are expected to give evidence at the trial, which is likely to last around a week.
Somalia’s al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab confirmed days after the siege at they were behind the attack, indicating that one of its suicide brigades carried out the siege. Although al-Shabaab is fighting for the creation of an Islamic state in Somalia, the militant group has on numerous occasions carried out attacks in neighboring Kenya in a bid to avenge the presence of Kenyan troops in Somalia to bolster the UN-backed central government.
Mali’s Parliamentary Election Results Released
December 18, 2013 in MaliAccording to provisional results announced by the government on Tuesday, the party of Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, and its allies, have won the West African country’s parliamentary elections.
Minister of Territorial Administration Moussa Sinko Coulibaly announced on state television that the Rally for Mali (RPM) party, along with its junior partners, had secured 115 of the 147 seats in the national assembly following a second round of voting that occurred on Sunday. The minister further noted that the exact breakdown was still being worked out. The Union for the Republic of Democracy (URD), the party of beaten presidential candidate Soumaila Cisse, will have between 17 and 19 members in the new parliament, effectively allowing Cisse to become the leader of the opposition. While the official results will be confirmed by the country’s constitutional court in the coming days, it appears that the RPM party have made good on a promise to deliver “a comfortable majority” to smooth the path for reforms that the president plans to put in place in order to rebuild Mali’s stagnant economy and to ease the ethnic tensions that are still an issue in the northern region of the country. Turnout for the second round of voting reached 37.3 percent, a drop from the 38.6 percent that was achieved during the first round, which itself was deemed disappointing by local and international officials. The second round of parliamentary voting was Mali’s fourth nationwide ballot in less than five months, with some observers blaming voting fatigue for the low turnout. Despite a terrorist attack being carried out the day before the elections, there were no serious incidents reported during the ten hours of voting however many voters were believed to have stayed away because of the recent upsurge in rebel attacks against African troops tasked with election security alongside French and Malian soldiers. On Saturday, two Senegalese UN peacekeepers were killed, and seven others wounded, when a suicide bomber ploughed his explosives-laden car into a bank they were guarding in the northeastern town of Kidal. The elections mark the completion of Mali’s return to democracy after the country was upended by a coup last year. Louis Michel, the European Union’s chief election observer in Mali indicated on Monday that his team had positively evaluated 98 percent of the 705 polling stations observed during the election. He further noted that the “legal framework” for the polls “remains aligned with international standards for democratic elections.”
Meanwhile officials reported on Tuesday that militants had shelled a camp, where French troops and the United Nations MINUSMA peacekeeping force are stationed, in northern Mali. According to military sources, “two shells were fired Monday night by unidentified persons at the Kidal camp for French troops and MINUSMA,” adding that there was “no damage or casualties.” The attack was later confirmed by a French military source stationed in Mali who indicated that the shells passed safely over the camp, missing their targets. The attack comes amidst an upsurge in violence in Mali’s north.
Two US Sailors Freed; US State Department Designates Boko Haram Terrorist Group
November 14, 2013 in NigeriaTwo American sailors, who were kidnapped off a vessel in the Gulf of Guinea last month, have been freed. A spokeswoman for the US State Department has confirmed that the two men, a captain and chief engineer of the US-flagged C-Retriever oil supply ship, were freed over the weekend, adding that the men are safe and healthy and currently on their way home. Although Jen Psaki provided no further details pertaining to the release of the two hostages, reports have indicated that the two men were freed after negotiations successfully yielded a ransom payment. Details of the ransom payment are unknown.
The C-Retriever was stormed by armed men on 23 October near the coastal town of Brass, in Nigeria’s Bayelsa State. The captain and chief engineer, whose names have been withheld for privacy reasons, were then kidnapped by the attackers. Last week, the 222-foot oil supply ship, which is owned by a Louisiana firm, was tracked near the outskirts of the Port of Onne, where it sat in the water apparently abandoned. So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Meanwhile the US State Department has designated Nigeria’s Boko Haram and Ansaru militant groups as foreign terrorist organizations, a move that is likely to be welcomed by the Nigerian government who has been battling Boko Haram for years. Officials at the State Department have described the move as “an important” step in helping Nigeria “root out violent extremism.” Up to now, the Obama administration had refused to designate the militant group as a terrorist organization, fearing that the title would provide Boko Haram greater legitimacy within global jihadi circles. While the State Department designated three alleged Boko Haram leaders as terrorists, it did not declare the militant group a terrorist organization. With terrorist splinter groups threatening the Sahel region, one of the reasons behind the US decision to designate Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization is the fact that US officials have cited links to al-Qaeda’s affiliates in West Africa and to extremist groups in Mali. In turn, while Boko Haram was initially viewed as an organization which only posed a domestic threat, another reason why the US had not previously designated it as a terrorist organization, over the last three years, as its attacks have intensified, there have been signs that Boko Haram is now focusing on a more international agenda.
The move to designate Boko Haram and Ansaru as foreign terrorist organizations is significant as it effectively means that US regulatory agencies will be instructed to block all business and financial transactions with Boko Haram. It will also become a crime under US law to provide material support to the group. However it is unlikely that the US will attempt to identify Boko Haram’s financial backers, an undertaking which the Nigerian government has up to now failed to achieve.
Boko Haram, which began its insurgency in 2009, desires to impose Islamic law in northern Nigeria. Since the beginning of its insurgency, the militant group has been blamed for thousands of deaths, targeting both the military and civilians. The Islamist group is responsible for the 2011 bombing of the United Nation headquarters in Abuja. The militant group, and other splinter terrorist groups, are seen as being the largest security threat in Nigeria. Despite an ongoing military campaign, which was launched by President Goodluck Jonathan in May of this year, and which was recently extended for an additional six months, the militant group has continued to carry out its attacks throughout northern Nigeria. In one of the most recent incidents, fighters dressed in military uniform killed nineteen motorists after blocking a highway in the northeast of the country.
Ansaru was formed in January 2012 however it only rose to prominence about six months later after a video was released in which the militant group vowed to attack Westerners in defense of Muslims worldwide. While the group, which is based in Nigeria and seen as an off-shoot of Boko Haram, has had a short existence, it has nevertheless proved to be a threat, using dynamite to penetrate heavily-fortified compounds and taking foreigners hostage.
Two months after being formed, officials in the UK indicated that Ansaru’s militants had killed a Briton and an Italian hostage who had been kidnapped in the northwestern state of Sokoto. In December 2012, following an attack on a well-guarded compound in the northern town of Rimi, Ansaru claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of a French national, Francis Colump. It carried out a similar attack in February 2013 when seven foreign nationals were captured from a housing compound owned by a Lebanese construction company.
