International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has said that the activities of pirates in the Gulf of Guinea have disrupted international shipping routes in Nigeria and Angola and cost the global economy billions of dollars.
The bureau said that the last quarter of 2018 saw a significant spike in violence off West Africa, with vessels boarded by pirates well outside territorial waters, and crew kidnapped and taken to Nigeria.
In that period, IMB noted that 41 kidnappings were recorded in waters off Nigeria alone, saying that pirates were reaching further out to sea and targeting a wider variety of ships, from fishing boats to bulk carriers.
The Gulf of Guinea, a coastal zone stretching thousands of kilometres off West Africa, has now eclipsed the Gulf of Aden — off the Horn of Africa — as the continent’s piracy hotspot.
It noted that pirate attacks rose worldwide in 2018 due to a surge off West Africa, calling for increased international cooperation to halt the spate of hijackings and kidnappings.
The IMB said in its annual piracy report that there were 201 recorded incidents of maritime piracy and armed robbery last year, up from 180 in 2017
He said: “There is an urgent need for increased cooperation and sharing of intelligence between the Gulf of Guinea’s littoral states so that effective action can be taken against pirates.”
The last quarter of 2018 saw a significant spike in violence off West Africa, with vessels boarded by pirates well outside territorial waters, and crew kidnapped and taken to Nigeria where they were held for ransom, the report said.
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