Pirates in Standoff Threaten Food Aid, Global Shipping

Nick Wadhams in Nairobi, Kenya
for National Geographic News

October 10, 2008

Somali pirates threatened Friday to blow up the arms-laded Ukrainian ship they are holding for a multimillion-dollar ransom if their demands are not met within three days.

"We held a consultative meeting for more than three hours today and decided to blow up the ship and its cargo—us included—if the ship owners did not meet our ransom demand," pirate spokesperson Sugule Ali Omar told the Associated Press.

The incendiary threat is just the latest salvo in a years-long Somalian piracy crisis that is driving up the cost of international shipping and cutting off the flow of food aid to the millions of Somalis who rely on it.

"We Decided to Capture It"

The current high-stakes, highly publicized ordeal began as business as usual on September 25.

To Somalian pirates, the M.V. Faina was an easy target.

As big as a fortress and not much faster, the vessel would fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom from a faraway shipping company, the pirates figured.

It was a surprise when they popped open the cargo hold and found 33 battle tanks and crates of small arms and ammunition, all bound for Kenya from Ukraine. The pirates asked for U.S. $35 million—a price they have since lowered.

"We saw a big ship, so we decided to capture it. And later we discovered that it was carrying tanks," Ali told National Geographic News by satellite phone from the deck of the hijacked ship.

"That made us happy, because we got a chance to demand more money," he said.

"No Time for Their PR Spin"

Piracy has made the shipping route through the Gulf of Aden, along Somalia's northern coast, one of the world's most dangerous. The route runs from the Arabian Sea through the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea and on to Egypt's Suez Canal, which empties out into the Mediterranean Sea (see map).

The gunmen have been portrayed as folk heroes by some commentators who play up the curious notion of present-day, in-the-flesh pirates. But they are making a food crisis in Somalia worse, with 3.25 million people—nearly half the population—now needing emergency aid, according to a statement issued Monday by 52 nongovernmental aid groups.

The pirates portray themselves as a de facto coast guard, intent on stopping the ruin of lawless Somalia's waters by foreign ships that fish illegally and dump toxic waste.

"We don't know whether it was going on to dump a toxin or to collect our marine resources. But we have to capture any ship who passes our water illegally," Ali said.

"In Somalia there is no functioning central government that can manage our waters, so we have appointed ourselves to guard our coast against the foreign ships," he said.

There is a shred of truth to the pirates' claims that Somalia's ungoverned waters have been an irresistible destination for ships looking to dump nasty chemicals or cast their fishing nets. But experts say the buccaneers are punishing the people of Somalia, where 16 years of war have has made refugees of hundreds of thousands.

Ninety percent of the WFP's aid arrives by sea, and each of those ships must now travel with a military escort to fend off the pirates.

"I have no time for their PR spin," WFP's Smerdon said.

Kidnap Insurance

Aid groups, including the UN World Food Programme (WFP), worry that the pirates are holding not only the ship and 20 crew members hostage, but Somalia's entire population of seven million as well.

"This being the worst year for piracy off Somalia, we could see the supply line cut completely," WFP spokesperson Peter Smerdon said earlier this week.

"That would mean many people quickly going hungry," he said.

So far this year there have been 60 pirate attacks along the route, which hosts 20,000 annual transits.

Insurance companies now offer "kidnap for ransom" policies to ships that move through the Suez Canal. One insurance company, U.K.-based Hiscox, prices the policy at U.S. $15,000 per trip through the Gulf of Aden, and business is humming.

So far, the insurers say they have seen no decline in the number of ships passing through the Suez Canal.

The willingness to pay ransom, fueled in part by the insurance plans, has only encouraged the pirates, who readily acknowledge their thirst for hefty sums of cash.

"They Can Get Away With It"

The pirates attacked the Faina—"crown" in Russian—on September 25. The United States, which runs patrols in the region, quickly surrounded the hijacked vessel with three warships, in an attempt to keep the weapons from falling into the hands of Islamist insurgents on land.

Russia sent another ship, and France on Tuesday pushed a measure through the UN Security Council urging tougher action against piracy.

The UN resolution allows governments to use "all necessary means" to fight piracy, but an all-out assault that threatens the Ukrainian, Latvian, and Russian crew seems unlikely—perhaps now more than ever, given Friday's bomb threat.

The Kenyan government on Wednesday announced its Navy would send a ship to help break the deadlock.

The pressure seems to be working. The pirates have reportedly dropped their ransom demand to $8 million, which is still a massive sum, especially in Somalia.

"They've proven time and time again that they can get away with it," said James Wilkes, managing director of the London-based Gray Page maritime-consulting group.

"They're hijacking the ships in daylight hours, and it's probably more sophisticated in organization than they've been given credit for before," he said.