Piracy worldwide has fallen to its lowest level in 34 years, but a renewed wave of ship hijackings off Somalia is raising concerns about the safety of international shipping lanes. South Korea is considering reinforcing its Cheonghae Unit in the Gulf of Aden and widening its area of operations, drawing fresh attention to international cooperation against piracy.
Piracy and armed robbery at sea totaled 51 cases worldwide in the first nine months of this year, down 56% from 116 a year earlier, according to a recent report by the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), an arm of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), released on the 19th local time. That is the lowest tally since 1992.
Of the total, 36 cases involved pirates boarding a vessel, while there were eight hijackings, four incidents of gunfire and three attempted boardings. Pirates who approached a ship succeeded in boarding it 86% of the time. Weapons were confirmed to have been used in 53% of all cases.
The report said Somali pirate activity has increased, running counter to the global decline. All eight hijackings recorded this year were attributed to Somali pirates, who also accounted for 94% of all crew members taken hostage in piracy incidents worldwide.
The number of crew members directly harmed in piracy incidents rose to 105 from 72 in the same period last year. Although the overall number of cases fell, the threat to seafarers' personal safety remains severe.
On April 21, the Palau-flagged tanker Honor 25 was hijacked near Puntland in northeastern Somalia. Puntland authorities said five crew members died and five were injured before the vessel was released in late September.
Michael Howlett, IMB's director, said Somali pirate activity has picked up but has not returned to the scale of 2008 to 2013, when pirates ranged far offshore and seized ships in large numbers. He added that while piracy has fallen to its lowest level in more than three decades, the resurgence of Somali pirates shows the threat still exists, requiring self-protection measures by ships and continued vigilance by the international community.
Multinational navies are also stepping up their response as Somali pirate activity resumes. Combined Task Force 151 (CTF-151), commanded by the South Korean navy under the U.S.-led Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), responded to a reported attack on a merchant ship in the Gulf of Aden in September by dispatching a Japanese maritime patrol aircraft to the scene, according to the CMF. The Korean command guided the Japanese aircraft to the site within two hours of receiving the report, with multinational navies and regional maritime security authorities jointly responding to the threat.
The South Korean government is also weighing reinforcements for the Cheonghae Unit in response to deteriorating security in the Gulf of Aden.
The Ministry of National Defense said on the 16th that security conditions are worsening, with pirate activity in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia rising sharply from previous years. It said it is considering sending an additional maritime patrol aircraft and expanding the Cheonghae Unit's area of operations to the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz. The navy unit has protected Korean vessels from pirates in the Gulf of Aden since 2009. In 2011, it rescued all 21 crew members of the Samho Jewelry, which had been hijacked by Somali pirates, in the Operation Dawn of Gulf of Aden.
The international community has curbed piracy in waters such as the Gulf of Aden through a continued naval presence and self-defense measures by merchant ships. But with Somali hijackings on the rise again, the role of the Cheonghae Unit and other multinational naval forces in protecting sea lanes is seen as growing more important.