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Ransoms and Hostages Increase for Somali Pirates

09 November 2010 21:50 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. The monsoon season has ended. The Indian Ocean is calm again. For Somaliaâ€™s pirates, that means one thing: it is a busy time of the year, APA reports quoting â€œThe New York Timesâ€.
According to Ecoterra Intl., a maritime organization with offices in East Africa, Somali pirates are currently holding hostage more than 25 foreign ships and 500 people, near an all time high.
Some of the ships have been hijacked hundreds of miles off shore, closer to India than to Africa. The crews are often held at gunpoint for months while ransom negotiations play out and the ransoms are getting bigger, drawing more young men from Somaliaâ€™s ruined economy â€“ the country has not had a functioning central government for nearly 20 years â€” into the piracy business.
Last week, a band of pirates received what is widely believed to be a record ransom â€“ around $10 million â€“ for a hijacked South Korean supertanker, the Samho Dream. The ship had been commandeered in April and anchored for months off the coast of Hobyo, in central Somalia, within plain sight of the beach.
The ransom was promptly divided between dozens of young gunmen, each allotted a $150,000 share. But many of the pirates never saw close to that much money because they had taken advances from their bosses and had to pay back expenses, said a pirate in the Hobyo area.
â€œDuring the six months the ship was here, they spent a lot on khat,â€ a local drug, â€œwomen and drink,â€ said the pirate, who asked not to be identified because what he was doing was illegal. â€œMany just came home with $20,000.â€
Some of the bigger pirate bosses in this part of Somalia have been building mini-armies from the millions they receive in ransoms, and it is widely believed that much of the money from the Samho Dream will go towards more weapons.
At the same time, the Shabab, the powerful Islamist insurgent group that vows to enforce strict Islamic law across Somalia, seems to be getting more deeply involved in piracy. Pirates recently sailed a hijacked yacht with three South Africans on board to Brava, a coastal town firmly in Shabab hands. The pirates would not be able to set foot in Brava, let alone stow hostages there, without Shabab cooperation.
According to European naval officials, the pirates in the yacht ran aground just off Bravaâ€™s beach on Sunday morning and ordered the hostages to come ashore. The skipper refused and was left behind on the sailboat and rescued soon after by a European naval patrol that had been trailing the sailboat. The two other South Africans are now believed to be in Brava.
Somali pirates have said they prefer bigger ships, especially oil tankers, which usually pay the best, though they will opportunistically attack a sailboat that crosses their path. A British couple, Paul and Rachel Chandler, have been held hostage for more than a year in Somalia since pirates hijacked their yacht in October 2009 near the Seychelles.
International warships are trying to thwart new attacks, sometimes successfully. Somalia pirates opened fire â€“ apparently by mistake â€” on a Spanish warship in a bungled night-time attack, maritime officials said Tuesday.
According to Lt. Col Per Klingvall, of the European Union Naval Force patrolling Somaliaâ€™s waters, pirates cruising around on a hijacked Japanese cargo ship started shooting at a Spanish frigate over the weekend while it was escorting a supply ship for African Union peacekeepers in Somalia. The warship promptly fired warning shots â€“ it did not want to sink the piratesâ€™ ship because of the possibility that hostages were still on board â€“ and the pirates motored away, Col. Klingvall said.
â€œThe frigate is relatively small and the pirates probably thought it was a merchant vessel,â€ he said.