Ship owners paid Somali pirates over Sh45 billion ($60 million) in ransom money last year, a report from a regional anti-piracy watchdog has revealed.The Seafarers’ Assistance Programme report indicated that 47 vessels and nearly 300 crew members were captured by the pirates.Programme co-ordinator Andrew Mwangura said that despite existing international efforts to counter piracy, 12 vessels and their crew, including a yachting couple, have so far fallen captive this year as piracy continued to threaten commercial activities in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian ocean.“During the first weeks of the new year, large ships continued to be attacked by the daring pirates,” he noted.Mr Mwangura said Global Peace Organisation, The World Peace Foundation and the Cambridge Coalition to Combat Piracy, have released 38 recommendations on how various stakeholders can combat the scourge on land and in the sea.Some of the stakeholders identified to partner in the new strategy include allied navies, ship owners and their crews and the countries affected.Pirate activities, believed to be perpetrated by suspected Somali nationals from the war-torn country, have caused untold suffering and losses to thousands of crews and owners of vessels, some of who have been forced to pay colossal sums as ransom money to secure the release of their ships.Recently, a Greek flagged tanker, VLCC Maran Centaurus and her 28 crew members that had been held captive off the Somali coast, was only released after the owners reportedly paid out a ransom of over $7 million, reportedly the largest ransom ever paid out to pirates.Piracy has impacted negatively on efforts by the World Food Programme to send humanitarian aid to starving families in Somalia, with some merchants refusing to hire out their vessels to ferry the food rations to that country.
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