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As the number and boldness of armed pirate attacks on ships traveling off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden increases, an international organization has called it a “global issue”.
At the 26th assembly of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), whose mission statement is “Safe, Secure and Efficient Shipping on Clean Oceans”, participants were focused on discussing the growing danger of piracy to the global shipping trade.
The IMO has been working closely with a number of international government and non-government organizations to combat piracy. Organizations include the United Nations, African Union, League of Arab States, the European Union, NATO and the Combined Maritime Forces.
Pirate attacks dominate the agenda of many maritime discussions these days, which is understandable considering that the number of attacks in East Africa have skyrocketed in the last two years. The combination of poverty, unstable governments and poor job opportunities have led many coastal Africans to resort to piracy as a relatively easy way to bring in a huge amount of money in a short time frame.
According to data from the IMO, there were 135 Southern Africa pirate attacks in 2008: 11 in the first quarter, 23 in the second, 50 in the third and 51 in the fourth. Last year a total of 44 ships were hijacked and over 600 crew members held for ransom.
The IMO has called piracy a symptom, not a cause – which means that the roots of piracy (poverty, political instability, high unemployment) will have to be tackled before international waters will be relatively safe again.
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