Piracy Issues

Subject: International Relations

The seas off West Africa’s oil-rich coastline are now the most dangerous in the world for shipping, according to a new report.
One Earth Future, which produces an annual State of Maritime Piracy, says that while attacks have been falling substantially in some regions of the world, in West Africa they’ve been on the rise and are now more frequent than anywhere else.
In 2018, there were 112 such incidents in West African waters.
It’s not just the huge tankers exporting oil and gas from Nigeria and Ghana that are targeted.
At a recent event in London, President Faure Gnassingbé of Togo – a country sandwiched between these two regional giants – highlighted his own concerns at the rise in attacks on regional shipping.
The coastline off Nigeria saw the most attacks in 2018. This is partly because of “petro-piracy”, targeting tankers from Nigeria’s rich oil and gas fields.
The Horn of Africa used to have a big piracy problem, but it’s now much reduced.
- The Horn of Africa denotes the region containing the countries of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia.
Attacks against shipping in the Caribbean and off the coast of Latin American have, however, risen.
Venezuela in particular has become a hotspot for piracy.