- Title: IVORY COAST: Nigerian pirate gangs extend reach off West Africa.
- Date: 29th May 2013
- Summary: ABIDJAN, IVORY COAST (RECENT) (REUTERS-ACCESS ALL) SUNSET OVER THE LAGOON WITH BOATS PASSING (SOUNDBITE) (French) CAPTAIN AUGUSTE DAGO, COMMANDER OF THE MARITIME SURVEILLANCE BRIGADE, SAYING: "We pray to God that this doesn't overtake Ivory Coast, that what happened on the Somali coasts doesn't happen in Ivory Coast, because it's a dangerous phenomenon and difficult because the interventions at sea are not obvious and they require a lot of resources." VARIOUS ABIDJAN PORT WITH THE TANKERS UNLOADING CARGO
- Embargoed: 13th June 2013 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Togo, Cote d'Ivoire
- City:
- Country: Togo Cote d'Ivoire
- Topics: Crime,Defence / Military
- Reuters ID: LVA3GMVBGB6YGIHJPTV3ALN4ICO8
- Story Text: Piracy is a relatively new phenomenon in the gulf of Guinea, with Ivory Coast seeing one of its first attempts only a few months ago, as piracy moves slowly from the coastal areas of Somalia to West African shores. However, officials in Ivory coast feel their port and their country is very poorly equipped to deal with the problem.
As the sun sets on Ivory Coast's port of Abidjan, a team of maritime surveillance brigade set out in a leaky wooden pirogue with no weapons and nothing more than mobile phones for communication.
Their mission: to hold the front line against piracy in the world's new hotspot for maritime crime, the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of West Africa.
Until recently, Ivory Coast's maritime surveillance brigade - the equivalent of a coastguard - managed, barely, to keep a lid on crime in the waters around one of Africa's busiest ports.
But ruthless Nigerian gangs, which have expanded hundreds of miles beyond their home waters in the last three years, reached francophone West Africa's largest economy in October.
"Logically, we should be in the sea every day, but we don't have enough many boats. We are forced to only go out if we have information about pirate activity," said Captain Auguste Dago, who is the commander of the maritime surveillance brigade.
Born of an uprising in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta, which spawned a web of criminal networks, the gangs now threaten to derail the development of one of the world's poorest regions as the Gulf of Guinea seeks to become a major oil and gas hub.
The start-up of large oil fields in Ghana, and promising discoveries to the west in neighbouring Ivory Coast, have helped to stoke interest in the region from international oil firms.
The spike in attacks is alarming Western powers, not least the United States, as regional governments struggle to cope.
In 2010, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), which has monitored global piracy since 1991, recorded 33 attacks in the Gulf of Guinea.
Last year, that figure jumped to 58.
Analysts say widespread under-reporting means the figure reflects just a fraction of the total, as there is little hope of rescue and reporting attacks bumps up insurance premiums.
According to U.S.-based consultancy C-Level Maritime Risks, there is about one attempted or actual pirate attack a day, with the chance of it going to almost two a day if present trends continue.
"The phenomenon is localised in this geographic area, in the waters going from Nigeria to Ivory Coast. And the last incident occurred in Ivorian territorial waters with the Gascongne tanker that was taken by pirates and a good portion of its cargo was taken, which was made up of petroleum products," said Colonel Mariko Mamadou, an official at the West African Maritime Organisation (OMAOC).
Pirates' use of rocket-propelled grenades to halt ships leave Ivory Coast's police feeling helplessly outgunned.
"What you must know with these pirates is that they are highly organized groups, very, very organized with a specific method of operating that is very precise, planned, very well calculated. Because first of all, they gather information and they identify the target -- generally the naval transportation of petroleum products," added Mamadou.
After eight years and nearly 150 hijackings, Somali pirates' stranglehold over East Africa's busy shipping lanes, which the World Bank says may cost the global economy 18 billion US dollars a year, is now being brought under control.
Armed attacks, once counted in the hundreds, fell to 75 in 2012, according to the IMB. Somali pirates have succeeded in seizing just one vessel off the Horn of Africa so far this year.
The world's mightiest navies and security firms hired by shipping companies were given a free hand off Somalia and their robust tactics are credited with stamping out piracy there, mainly due to an absence of government.
But for many West African governments, suspicious of foreign meddling, a massive influx of warships is a non-starter. And most regional nations - often states recovering from brutal civil wars - ban the use of weapons by private security details.
Until now, the greatest obstacle to solving the problem in the Gulf of Guinea has been a lack of interest.
Analysts say piracy in east Africa has been contained, after money was invested in capacity building to counter piracy, contrary to what's happening in the Gulf of Guinea.
Security experts say that Ivory Coast, just like the rest of the Gulf of Guinea has become a soft target because of a lack of law enforcement and resources.
In October 2012, pirates armed with AK-47s and knives boarded a gasoline tanker named the Orfeas as it lay at anchor in Abidjan.
After subduing the 24-man crew and smashing communications equipment, they sailed 650 nautical miles to a rendezvous point off Nigeria where they stole as much of the cargo as they could.
In all, the operation took four days but the pirates knew there was almost no chance of being caught.
Ivory Coast did not possess a single vessel capable of patrolling on the open sea.
"We pray to God that this doesn't overtake Ivory Coast, that what happened on the Somali coasts doesn't happen in Ivory Coast, because it's a dangerous phenomenon and difficult because the interventions at sea are not obvious and they require a lot of resources," said Dago.
The United States has helped train and equip Nigeria's navy - the region's dominant seagoing force - in an effort to give it the tools to clamp down on the threat emanating from its waters.
But there has also been increased regional will to combat piracy in West Africa.
After the pirates invaded Benin's waters in 2011, President Thomas Boni Yayi asked Nigeria's navy for help and the resulting joint patrols quickly reduced the number of attacks there.
The European Union is funding the training of seven coastguards in the region.
And a new code of conduct for the countries of West and Central Africa, drafted with the help of the U.S. military, calls upon governments to work together to dismantle onshore bases and impound ships believed to be used in maritime crime.
The document, described by security experts as a "game changer", is due to be approved by heads of state at a summit in Cameroon next month. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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