Latest piracy news (Dec 29, 2013)
(BRUSSELS2) Still nearly 50 sailors hostage to Somali pirates! • Visit of the Spanish Prime Minister to Djibouti • Trial postponed in Mauritius • Training for the Tanzanian navy • British drone to attack pirates • An action plan for Somaliland
Still nearly 50 sailors held hostage by Somali pirates!
With the threat of piracy diminishing and the release of almost all sailors hostage to Somali pirates, they could be forgotten. But, at the latest assessment, there are still 49 sailors hostages in the hands of pirates at the end of 2013! Most of them have been held prisoner for many months, even years, and come from the Asian continent. Their countries and their shipowners seem to have abandoned them to their fate. Let us quote them: 4 Thai sailors from the FV Prantalay (a Thai fishing vessel), who have been detained since April 2010 (3 1/2 years!); 11 sailors from MV Albedo (7 Bangali, 2 Sri Lankan, 1 Indian and 1 Iranian, held prisoner since November 2010), their ship sank this summer; 7 Indian sailors from the Norwegian ship MT Asphalt Venture ; and the 27 Taiwanese, Filipino, Indonesian, Chinese and Vietnamese sailors from the FV Naham 3 (a Thai ship).

Visit of the Spanish Prime Minister to Djibouti
Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish Prime Minister, visited in Djibouti on December 22 the Spanish military engaged in the fight against piracy both within NATO and the European Union. This presence “is essential for the protection of merchant ships transiting the area, fishermen and vessels of the UN World Food Program » he said according to the statement released by Moncloa. The Prime Minister thus boarded the frigate Alvaro de Bazán who commands the Ocean Shield (NATO) mission and visited the detachment of the P3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft (EUNAVFOR Atalanta) which is located at the Djibouti air base. He also met the Djibouti President, Ismail Omar Guelleh.
Trial postponed in Mauritius
The trial of the 12 alleged pirates arrested by the French frigate Surcouf after the attack on the MSC Jasmine continues in Mauritius but at a slow pace. American officers should be heard in January and French officers in mid-February. Transferred to the island in January, their trial was initially delayed. A sick prisoner is still hospitalized. And some of them complain of having been beaten by their guards (the chiourmes guards), as the island's daily underlines, the Mauritian. Procedural quibbles are multiplying. The defense lawyers notably contest each of the pieces of evidence presented, including the fact that the suspects were photographed. They also believe that the evidence, brought back by a Mauritian police officer from Djibouti and provided by the French navy, was not sufficiently secure to be valid. Read also: A group of pirates foiled near the Somali coast. 12 suspects arrested

Training for the Tanzanian Navy
During their stopover at the port of Dar Es Salaam, the Spanish sailors of the patrol boat ESPS Tornado organized training for the Tanzanian navy in mid-December. 19 members of the Tanzanian navy received a briefing on boarding operations, followed by a boarding exercise.
British drone attacks pirates
The Royal Navy's first Scan Eagle drone made its first operational flight in mid-December. Launched by a catapult from the bridge of the FRG Cardigan Bay, it was then retrieved by a rope on the side of the ship. It will be used in " not much time ", British Defense Minister Philip Hammond told the press during a visit to Waddington Air Force Base, “to spot pirates” in the Indian Ocean. This is the first time that this secret RAF base, located in Lincolnshire, used to pilot Reaper drones in Afghanistan, has been open to the press (read report in the Daily Express and in the Telegraph with a video from ITN). This ScanEagle is one of two drones acquired last June by the Royal Navy from Boeing, at a cost of £30 million for both. Note that the Dutch navy already uses this type of drone, one of which crashed at sea. Read: Dutch drone crashes at sea • The usefulness of drones in the fight against pirates

An action plan for Somaliland
A joint plan, listing future programmes and activities, of the European mission EUCAP Nestor in Somaliland was adopted on Sunday (15 December). A "crucial step" for technical cooperation between the two European missions (EUCAP Nestor and Atalanta) and the government of the autonomous province, as recalled by the heads of European missions Etienne de Poncins (EUCAP Nestor) and Rear Admiral Hervé Bléjean (Eunavfor) who received off the coast of Berbera, aboard the FS Siroco, the flagship of the European anti-piracy force (Eunavfor), several Somaliland politicians, including the vice-president of Somaliland, Abdirahman Abdallahi Ismail Saylici.
Somali suspects repatriated
7 Somali pirates, convicted in Kenya, were repatriated at the end of November to Galkayo in Somalia to complete their sentences. It was UNODC which took charge of their repatriation as part of a Kenya-Somalia agreement. Similarly, 14 Somalis who had been arrested in the Maldives were repatriated. But they are free, the Maldives refused to judge them, considering their legislation not adequate to questions of piracy. They were, in fact, deported as illegal immigrants.
Nicolas Gros Verheyde