Piracy at historic levels

A total of 306 piracy incidents were reported to the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre in the first nine months of 2009 – the figures have already surpassed the total number of attacks in 2008 as 293 incidents were reported last year. ”The increase in attacks is directly attributed to heightened piracy activity off the Somali Coast, where 47 incidents were reported compared to just 12 for the same period of the previous year, and in the Gulf of Aden, which had 100 incidents compared to 51 for the same period of the previous year”, IMB says in its report.