Somali pirates freed a Bangladesh-flagged cargo ship and its 23 crew members on April 14, 2024 after paying a ransom by the ship’s owners, the shipping company said. Gold, ” ransom payment could spark new wave of attacks », Estimates a structure specializing in maritime security.
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With our correspondent in Nairobi, Gaëlle Laleix
The resurgence of piracy in Somalia, again: on April 15, 2024, pirates announced to the Reuters agency that they had received a ransom of 5 million dollars, in exchange for the release of a commercial liner. THE MV Abdullahflying the Bangladeshi flag, was returned to the Somali coast on April 14, after more than a month in captivity.
It was on its route between Mozambique and the United Arab Emirates that the MV Abdullah was intercepted by Somali pirates.
Since the end of 2023, they have returned to service: Somali piracy had however been almost eradicated. According to the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), a British think tank, there have been more attacks in the last six months off the coast of Somalia than in the last six years, with pirates taking advantage, among other things, of the disorder generated by the Houthi rebellion off the coast of Yemen. “ But the kidnapping of the MV Abdullah is the first to really bear fruit “, explains a security expert in the region.
Read alsoWho are the Houthis, this Yemeni militia targeted by American and British strikes?
So far, the Center for Maritime Security in the Horn of Africa, monitoring center of the European operation against piracy, Atalanta, considers the threat off the coast of Somalia as “ moderate “. But, in his last bulletin published on April 15, 2024, he recognizes that “ ransom payment could spark new wave of attacks “.
The Center for Maritime Security has identified at least one structured group of Somali pirates, with several camps located along the Puntland coast.
Read alsoPiracy: multiplication of incidents off the coast of Somalia, in the midst of a crisis in the Gulf of Aden