Securing our oceangoing vessels

The maritime vessel named MV Abdullah that was hijacked by Somali pirates on Tuesday last week from the high seas in the Indian Ocean is learnt to have been changing its position keeping close to the Somali coast. The crew members of the ship reportedly are safe and that the pirates have been allowing them to perform their normal activities. The vessel carrying coal and with 23 crew members on board was sailing from Mozambique, a country in South-eastern Africa, to the United Arab Emirates. It may be recalled that 14 years ago in the December of 2010, another such act of hijacking of a Bangladeshi ship took place in the Arabian Sea bound for Greece. It was named MV Jahan Moni and owned by SR Shipping.  Interestingly, the ship hijacked last week is also owned by the same company, SR Shipping, and the pirates were again from Somalia.  It is indeed a strange coincidence.

What was also unusual in the latest piracy case is that the ship was far from the high-risk, pirate-infested zone (within 70 to 100 nautical miles from Somali coast), some 450 nautical miles away from the Somali coastline. Somali pirates usually prey on ships that ply close to their own coast. And they target ships that lack adequate safety measures. According to the guidelines of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), commercial vessels sailing across risky zones should adhere to certain safety protocols that include employing armed guards, securing a ship's perimeter and using tactical navigation and so on. Did MV Abdullah lack these safety features?

On this score, what the president of the Bangladesh Merchant Marine Officers Association (BMMOA), Captain Anam Chowdhury, told BBC is worth noting. He said, pirates generally target ships that they consider weak. And according to Mr. Chowdhury, the Bangladeshi commercial vessel in question was moving slowly and the height of the ship's deck from water was low. And the ship did not have any armed security guard on board. However, the owner of the ship, SR Shipping, differed on this point saying the ship was on a safe route as it was far from the risky zone and hence did not require any additional armed guards.

Whatever the case, the ship was after all hijacked and that too from what appears to be a safe zone. So, the question naturally arises why the pirates targeted MV Abdullah among all other ships sailing at the same time so far from the nearest coast?

Reports have it that the pirates, who were operating a hijacked Iranian fishing boat, were using a technology called Automatic Information Service (AIS) to know about the types of vessels, their speed, destinations and other features plying within a radius of 50 nautical miles.  Obviously, they got the AIS device from the fishing boat that they are now using as a command centre. Small wonder that the seamen in charge of the Bangladeshi cargo ship were not alarmed when they saw a fishing boat so close to their vessel. Perhaps, that might be reason that the pirates could take MV Abdullah's operators by surprise. And, one wonders, if the Somali pirates were already familiar with Bangladeshi maritime vessels, especially their characteristics regarding safety features! It would be important to take this point into consideration seeing that Somalis, particularly those involved in global criminal networks are everywhere. As the case maybe, the latest incident of hijacking of a Bangladeshi maritime vessel by pirates far away from home should be a cause for concern. The government will be required to ensure that from now on every commercial vessel from Bangladesh bound for distant seas has adequate safety measures.

Meanwhile, let us keep our fingers crossed that the crew members of MV Abdullah are safe and pray for their early return.

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