Shippers want more help vs. hijackers

[unhappycamper]

French frigate the Nivose, center, escorts the Seaborn Spirit, right, and the Alize to protect them against piracy Nov. 26 off the coast of Djibouti. World powers have vowed tough action against rampant piracy off Somalia's coastline, which has disrupted commercial traffic in the Gulf of Aden, a major world maritime trade route.


Shippers want more help vs. hijackers
By Philip Ewing - [e-mail]
Posted : Monday Dec 8, 2008 6:32:56 EST

Merchant shippers increased their appeals to the world’s navies in early December after another escalation in pirate attacks off the Horn of Africa. The U.N. Security Council responded Dec. 2 by passing a resolution that supported counterpiracy missions, but its real-world effects remain unclear.

The same day, a swarm of 12 to 20 small pirate boats attacked a group of five cargo vessels running in an informal convoy. Merchant sailors were trying to repel the pirates with fire hoses when the Italian destroyer Luigi Durand de la Penne rushed to their aid and scattered the attackers.

Within the preceding week, pirates chased and fired on two cruise ships packed with vacationers as they passed off the Somali coast.

“We are fighting with our backs to the wall,” said Per Gullestrup, CEO of Danish ship owner Clipper Projects.

Nikos Tzanetakos, an officer aboard the Greek tanker Ellivita, told the Reuters news service Dec. 2 that the Gulf of Aden has become a “route of terror.”


Rest oif article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/12/navy_shipping_120808w/%2e