Piracy & Armed Robbery At Sea - January 2013
The Horn of Africa/IOR maintained a low register of activity across the HRA throughout January. West Africa has seen a spread of incidents beyond Nigeria and immediate neighbouring states waters, including one anomalous incident. Asia HRA witnessed an increase in incidents from the low activity in December. Robbery activity returns to South America. A total of 28 incidents occurred in January.
One hijack occurred this month off the Ivory Coast. Panama-flagged tanker with a crew of 16, MT ITRI was hijacked whilst preparing to deposit oil at the port of Abidjan. She was released following the theft of $5M cargo. The continuing and alarming trend is the kidnap of crew from ships. A 5-skiff attack using RPG was also a feature in the Gulf of Guinea.
In Asia, an increase in incidents was noted spread across the region from India’s East coast to Manila, Philippines and South to the regular hotspot of Balikpapan, Indonesia. The standout instances are the use of a fishing vessel as a mothership, the assaults and threats to crew and the multiple attacks/approaches on tugs towing barges/barge carriers.
South America saw 3 more incidents than in December 2012 with robberies in Guyana, Colombia and Peru respectively.
One highly irregular report (not receiving too much notice in the media) is the spurious report of an approach by two skiffs over 1200nm East of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean.
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Source: http://www.oceanuslive.org