Resilience, Peace and Security

Piracy is on the rise, and coronavirus could make it worse

Hostages and pirates stand with their hands up before the intervention of Dutch NATO soldiers off Somalia's coast in this NATO handout photo made available April 18, 2009. Dutch commandos freed 20 Yemeni hostages on Saturday and briefly detained seven pirates who had forced the Yemenis to sail a "mother ship" attacking vessels in the Gulf of Aden, NATO officials said.

2020 has seen a 24% increase in pirate attacks and coronavirus could cause sn increase, as countries are crippled by the pandemic Image: REUTERS/NATO/Handout

Brandon Prins
Professor of Political Science & Global Security, University of Tennessee
  • 2020 has seen a 24% increase in pirate attacks and attempted attacks over the same period in 2019.
  • Poorer governments are less able to battle piracy as the coronavirus pandemic weakens economies.
  • However, global piracy still isn’t as high as it was during the Somali peak from 2009 to 2012.

In early April, eight armed raiders boarded the container ship Fouma as it entered the port of Guayaquil, Ecuador. They fired warning shots toward the ship’s bridge, boarded the ship and opened several shipping containers, removing unknown items before escaping in two speedboats. Nobody was harmed.

Ecuador isn’t exactly a hot spot of global piracy, but armed robbers regularly attack ships in and around the port of Guayaquil. It’s the seventh-busiest port in Latin America, handling most of Ecuador’s agricultural and industrial imports and exports. Ships moored along the port’s quays or, like the Fouma, transiting its narrow river passages are easy prey for local criminal gangs.

Only a few short years ago the international community was celebrating the end of maritime piracy. Worldwide in 2019, there were fewer attacks and attempted attacks on ships than there had been in 25 years.

Have you read?

But as the Guayaquil attack hints, pirates may be getting more active. Already, the first three months of 2020 have seen a 24% increase in pirate attacks and attempted attacks, over the same period in 2019. As a scholar of sea piracy, I worry that the coronavirus pandemic may make piracy even more of a problem in the coming months and years.

The world's oceans are getting safer from pirates
The annual evolution of annual piracy incidents Image: IMB Piracy Reporting Centre and Maritime Piracy Event and Location Data Project
In a photo from 2012, masked Somali pirate Hassan stands near a Taiwanese fishing vessel that washed up on a Somali shore after the pirates were paid a ransom and released the crew.
A masked Somali pirate Image: AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh

Counter-piracy successes

Modern sea piracy often involves pirates in small fast boats approaching and boarding larger, slower-moving ships to rob them of cargo – such as car parts, oil, crew valuables, communication equipment – or to seize the ship and crew for ransom.

Beginning in 2008, the greater Gulf of Aden area off the coast of East Africa became the most dangerous waters in the world for pirate attacks. Somali pirates like those portrayed in the 2013 Tom Hanks movie “Captain Phillips” spent five years regularly hijacking large commercial vessels.

Three international naval efforts, and industry-wide efforts to make ships harder to attack and easier to defend, helped reduce the threat – as did improved local government on land, such as enhanced security and better health and education services. By 2019, the International Maritime Bureau reported no successful hijackings in the Greater Gulf of Aden.

In Southeast Asia, better aerial and naval surveillance has curbed pirate threats, with the help of improved coordination between national governments that share jurisdiction of the region’s busy shipping lanes.

As a result of these efforts, the global number of attacks and attempted attacks dropped significantly over the past decade, from a high of nearly 450 incidents in 2010 to fewer than 165 incidents in 2019 – the lowest number of actual and attempted pirate attacks since 1994. Ship hijackings, the most severe and visible manifestation of sea piracy, also have declined since 2010.

Overall piracy drops, but some places remain dangerous
Piracy in the Americas and off the coast of West Africa Image: IMB Piracy Reporting Centre

A return of pirates?

However, the Fouma attack is a troubling sign. The sea robbers seem to have had detailed advance knowledge of the ship’s cargo, as well as its course and the personnel on board. Those are clues that the pirates planned the attack, likely with help from the crew or others with specific information about the ship.

That sort of insider information is relatively rare in pirate attacks in general, but is common when pirates go after large cargo vessels and tanker ships, as happens in about one-third of pirate attacks.

Piracy in the waters off of South America – and off West Africa – has been increasing somewhat in recent years. Some of the conditions in those regions are similar to the ones that drove the Somali spike a decade ago: weak governments embroiled in political violence, widespread economic hardship and easy access to weapons.

Most piracy ultimately affects poor countries with weak governments. That’s because criminals, insurgents and other groups see opportunities to raise money for their land-based battles by stealing from passing ships. For instance, militant groups in Nigeria, particularly in the Niger River Delta region and the Gulf of Guinea, siphon oil off tanker ships and resell it on the black market.

With economic hardship striking Venezuela and Brazil, poor and jobless citizens may see opportunities offshore. Weak police and corrupt officials only exacerbate the economic problems.

A potential uptick in piracy for 2020
How piracy numbers are sizing up for 2020 Image: IMB Piracy Reporting Centre

The coronavirus weakens nations – and ships

The medical and economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic seems likely to pose severe challenges for countries with few resources and weak governments. West African and South American countries already struggle to police their territorial waters. Those regions have not yet been severely affected by the coronavirus, though infections are growing on both continents.

As hospitals fill with COVID-19 patients, the regions’ governments will almost certainly shift their public safety efforts away from sea piracy and toward more immediate concerns on land. That will create opportunities for pirates.

The disease may make it harder for crews to protect ships as well. Most merchant vessel crews are already stretched thin. If crew members get sick, restrictions on international travel prevent their replacements from meeting the ship in whatever port it’s in.

Slowing consumer spending around the globe means less trade, which brings less revenue for shipping companies to spend on armed guards or other methods of protecting ships against pirates. As a result, ships will likely become easier targets for pirates.

Even with the early numbers suggesting an increase for 2020, global piracy still isn’t as high as it was during the Somali peak from 2009 to 2012. But if economic conditions worsen around the globe and ships look like easy targets, more desperate people may turn to piracy, or ramp up their existing efforts in an attempt to survive.

Loading...
Loading...
Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

Sign up for free

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Stay up to date:

COVID-19

Related topics:
Resilience, Peace and SecurityHealth and Healthcare SystemsEquity, Diversity and Inclusion
Share:
The Big Picture
Explore and monitor how COVID-19 is affecting economies, industries and global issues
A hand holding a looking glass by a lake
Crowdsource Innovation
Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale
World Economic Forum logo
Global Agenda

The Agenda Weekly

A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda

Subscribe today

You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.

5 ways AI can help crisis response around the world

Devanand Ramiah

December 6, 2024

Our civilization’s survival depends on collective action

About us

Engage with us

  • Sign in
  • Partner with us
  • Become a member
  • Sign up for our press releases
  • Subscribe to our newsletters
  • Contact us

Quick links

Language editions

Privacy Policy & Terms of Service

Sitemap

© 2024 World Economic Forum