The ongoing policing of piracy

摘要

The rate of attacks labelled as piracy by the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), between January to June this year on merchant ships at sea and in harbours, was down on the same period last year. This confirms a continuing, if gradual reduction, in the rate of pirate attacks across the world. Of the total numbers of attacks nearly half of the reporting provided by the IMB relates to attacks in the geographically dispersed harbours and anchorages of Indonesia. The scale of these attacks far outweighs those that now occur infrequently off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Guinea. There is also a continuing drum-beat of activity off the coast of Bangladesh and around the Singapore Straits and along the Malaysian Coast. Off South America where a small cluster of attacks had featured in past reporting off the coast of Columbia only a single report was filed of a piracy event in the first half of 2014.