Piracy in the Gulf of Aden: thoughts on human traffickers / pirates

Created by doina. Last modified on 2006-02-24 13:25:44
Topic: Piracy
Countries: Somalia, Yemen

Dear Noonsite,

I am a former marine war and terrorism underwriter from Lloyd's and am now lecturing in maritime security studies at City University, London. I have been researching piracy attacks on private yachts in the Gulf of Aden and thanks to your website and others I have been able to chart the exact location of a number of the attacks. In particular, if one were to chart the following attacks:

Josephine (2/3/03) 13°30N 48°20E

Bambola Quatre (2/3/03) 13°31N 48°24E

Saltaire (5/3/04) 13°13N 48°33E

Gypsy Days (9/3/03) 13°11N 48°40E

Imani (9/3/03) 13°11N 48°40E

Nareena (9/3/03) 13°11N 48°40E

Penyllan (9/3/03) 13°11N 48°40E

Sea Dove (9/3/03) 13°11N 48°40E

Gone Troppo (27/1/00) 13°03N 48°41E

you will find that they fall within a narrow corridor that links the Somali city of Bosasso with the Yemeni city of Balhaf. I am very interested to hear from anyone who shares my belief that the piracy attacks on private yachts may at least in part be carried out by human traffickers (some of the piracy reports suggest they are) and if the piracy attacks occur along such defined routes, it may be that they are more organised than we think.

Risto Talas risto.talas@virgin.net