We cover piracy, armed robbery at sea, IUU fishing, maritime cyber security and maritime security issues.
New Delhi [India], September 16 (ANI): India has joined the Djibouti Code of Conduct as Observer, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said here on Wednesday.
“India has joined the Djibouti Code of Conduct/ Jeddah Amendment, as Observer, following the high level meeting of the Djibouti Code of Conduct/ Jeddah Amendment (DCOC/JA) held virtually on August 26,” MEA said in a statement.
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Source: bignewsnetwork.com
KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News – 15th Sep, 2020 ) :Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) and Pakistan Customs in a joint intelligence based counter narcotics operation recovered almost 2700 kilograms of hashish worth around Rs 820 million.
A statement issued here Tuesday said that the PMSA aircraft during patrolling at high seas spotted a suspicious boat which was hiding in a group of fishing boats. Immediately PMSA ship was tasked towards the Contact of Interest.
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Source: urdupoint.com
Chaos at sea: Pirates are said to have hijacked the tanker “Aegean II” in the Gulf of Aden, the shipping service “G-Captain” reported at the end of August. Two days later it was reported that men in police uniforms had boarded the “Aegean II”. They took the weapons from the private security forces on board the ship and demanded money from the 20-member ship crew. As a Spanish military ship approached, they disappeared as quickly as they had come. It is still unclear whether the perpetrators were pirates – or even Somali policemen.
It is not only in eastern Africa that the security situation for international merchant shipping is critical. In its “Piracy Report”, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) reported 162 pirate attacks worldwide and 130 hijacked ships last year. This represents a 20 percent decrease compared to 2018. But in some areas the situation is different, where the danger increases significantly.
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Source: welt.de
Press Release
THE Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) and EUNAVFOR have held discussions about developing their partnership in conducting counter-piracy operations in the region.
CMF’s Combined Task Force 151, an anti-piracy task force led by the Turkish Navy, held discussions with Commander of EUNAVFOR’s CTF 465, Rear Admiral Riccardo Marchiò via a video teleconference.
CTF 151 Commander, Rear Admiral Inanir said: “It is important that we continue discussions with our partners, especially in this crucial part of the world.”
“Today we talked about planning joint exercises, focused operations and information sharing. We need to ensure that there are no gaps in our routine patrols, so that we are both able to respond to incidents effectively,” RADM Inanir added.
Whilst the CTF 151 staff conducted the call from the CMF headquarters in Bahrain, RADM Marchiò was operating from the Italian frigate, Luigi Rizzo, as his task force commence counter piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden.
CMF’s CTF 151 and EUNAVFOR’s CTF 465 both operate in a contentious region which is home to a number of the world’s most strategic chokepoints, and piracy and armed robbery at sea remain a threat to merchant shipping in the region.
Both commanders agree that the size of the area is a challenge that can only overcome by effective cooperation, demonstrating the importance of the partnership shared by CMF and EUNAVFOR.
“There are many merits to coordinating exercises and military campaigns together; warships are able to operate efficiently together,” said RADM Riccardo Marchiò.
“The south west monsoon season continues in the region, with associated blustery weather and a high sea state. As the weather eases, it becomes more feasible for pirates to operate again,” said RADM Inanir, concluding the call. “CTF 151 and CTF 465 must be ready and alert to prevent them.”
By: Salifa Karapetyan Edited by: Betymie Bonnelame
(Seychelles News Agency) – Four witnesses from the Seychelles Police Force presented their evidence Monday as the trial of five Somali nationals suspected of a pirate attack against a Korean fishing vessel began at the Supreme Court.
According to the EU NAVFOR, the incident began on April 19, 2019 when five suspected pirates captured a Yemeni dhow off the coast of Somalia. Two days later the pirates attacked the Korean fishing vessel Adria with the dhow acting as a mothership in the Indian Ocean some 280 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia.
On April 23, the EU NAVFOR‘s flagship ESPS NAVARRA intercepted and boarded the captured dhow vessel and apprehended the five suspected pirates. The forces said that it was the first notable piracy incident event since October 2018, a huge drop in frequency compared to a decade earlier when Somali piracy interrupted international shipping and travel on a major scale.
The prosecutor in the case, Georges Thachett, told SNA that “we have a fair amount of evidence but it is up to the court to decide the outcome.”
The lawyer representing the Somalis, Joel Camille, told SNA that the local witnesses are expected to be heard until Thursday when witnesses overseas would connect via video link. Only then, Camile said, would he know how the case for his clients was going.
According to the Department of Foreign Affairs, the EU NAVFOR Somalia Operation Atalanta transferred the five suspects to Seychellois authorities last year in accordance with a transfer agreement between the Seychelles and the European Union with support from United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Present at the hearing was a representative of the UNODC whose duty is to look after the welfare of the accused and ensure that there is a fair legal process.
Camille said the case was supposed to start last Monday but the prosecution were unable to bring in their witnesses.
“The court gave them until last Friday when they advised the court that they will start their case today,” he added.
Seychelles is east of the Somali coast and has placed itself at the forefront of the fight against piracy since 2005 when the scourge began expanding, adversely impacting the nation’s tourism and fishing industries, the top pillars of its economy. The island nation in the western Indian Ocean has since then been working with international partners to apprehend and prosecute suspected Somali pirates.
Somaliland and Seychelles signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the transfer of sentenced pirates in 2011. With special jurisdiction to handle piracy and maritime crime cases, Seychelles started hearing cases in June 2015.
Source: seychellesnewsagency.com
South Africa is ready to help insurgency-hit Mozambique with support from its intelligence services or military, but its neighbour would first need to request that help, South African foreign minister Naledi Pandor said on Wednesday.
Pandor told a parliamentary committee that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) had asked Mozambique to provide a roadmap on the assistance it might need, which would then be deliberated upon before a course of action was chosen.
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Source: defenceweb.co.za
The controversial case that involved the killing of two Kerala fishermen by two Italian marines onboard MV Enrica Lexie nearly eight years ago concluded on 31 May 2020, in the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The implications of this decision, however, have gone largely unnoticed in India. Originally, only excerpts of this decision were released to the public, with the full arbitral award subject to a confidentiality review by the two nations.
The final award, published inconspicuously some weeks ago sans fanfare, presents a troubling picture. Departing from established doctrine and riddled with contradictions, the PCA’s award seems almost at pains to contrive a legal path to ensure that the Italian marines accused of murder do not have to ‘suffer’ through a trial in Indian courtrooms.
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Source: theprint.in
RIYADH: Saudi-led coalition forces in Yemen intercepted and destroyed a remote-controlled boat rigged with explosives in Hodeidah governorate on Sunday, the alliance’s joint command said.
In a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the coalition said the bomb-laden boat was launched by the Iran-backed Houthi “terrorist” militia.
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Source: arabnews.com
LONDON: A British team has helped secure the release of three Iranian sailors from Somali pirates, amid heightened tensions between the UK and Iran over the case of the imprisoned charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
The deal for the sailors’ release involved a ransom payment of $180,000 — brokered by the UK-based Hostage Support Partnership — which was coordinated by Kenya-based former British diplomat John Steed in partnership with Leslie Edwards, a UK-based hostage-negotiation specialist. It ends the longest-running maritime hostage situation in the region to date, with the three men having spent five-and-a-half years in captivity.
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Source: arabnews.com
The inauguration ceremony of the new state-of-the-art Joint Maritime Information Coordination Centre (JMICC) was held in Karachi on Friday, and Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi graced the occasion as chief guest and inaugurated the new setup.
The spokesman for the navy said in a statement that the JMICC functioned as a nerve centre to harmonise the efforts of all maritime-related organisations and agencies. It helped generating a coordinated response to maritime security challenges within Pakistan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), primarily through information-sharing and inter department/ agency coordination, he added.
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Source: thenews.com.pk
Maritime Security News 