Last modification: 04/12/08
 -  Piracy (maritime) - Somalia
 
The Gulf of Aden, a pirate’s paradise
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Located between Yemen and Somalia, the Gulf of Aden is a major maritime passageway between Europe and the Far East that, in recent years, has become a veritable nightmare for navigators and a paradise for Somali pirates.
Since January 2008, acts of piracy have been on the rise off the Horn of Africa. But it is the choice of targets and the pirates’ growing resources that are beginning to worry the international community. During the 1990s, pirates were known to attack simple fishing vessels using small boats and small arms. Today, they are increasingly targeting large commercial ships and attacking them farther and farther from the coastline, using high-speed motorboats and heavy automatic weapons. Since the summer, the pirates have become bolder. After a September attack on a Ukrainian ship carrying 33 tanks, a Saudi supertanker was attacked on November 15 on the open Indian Ocean, more than 800 kilometres from the coast. On November 22, the UN’s International Maritime Organization described the situation off the Somali coast as “out of control.”

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