Latest piracy news (Dec 29, 2013)
(BRUXELLES2) 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 attacking 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 paid a visit to Djibouti, on December 22, to the Spanish soldiers engaged in the fight against piracy both within NATO and the European Union. This presence "is essential for the protection of merchant vessels transiting through the area, fishermen such as the 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 mission (NATO) 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 slow speed. 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 police guards), as the daily newspaper of the island points out, the Mauritian. Procedural quibbles are on the rise. The defense lawyers dispute in particular each of the evidence presented, in particular the fact that the suspects were photographed. They also believe that the evidence, brought back by a Mauritian policeman 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 attacking 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 Secretary Philip Hammond told reporters 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 fly Reaper drones in Afghanistan, is 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 programs and activities, of the EU mission EUCAP Nestor in Somaliland was adopted on Sunday (15 December). A "capital 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 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, sentenced in Kenya, were repatriated at the end of November to Galkayo in Somalia to complete their sentence. It was UNODC that took charge of their repatriation within the framework of a Kenya-Somalia agreement. Similarly, 14 Somalis who had been arrested in the Maldives have been repatriated. But they are free, the Maldives have refused to judge them, considering their legislation not adequate to questions of piracy. They were, in fact, deported as illegal immigrants.
Nicolas Gros Verheyde