Source: Reuters

Updated: 2010-2-1

 

China's participation in an international naval operation to protect ships from pirates off the coast of Somalia should help improve maritime security in the Horn of Africa, an EU naval commander said on January 28.

 

China said on January 28 that late last year it would co-lead an international task force fighting piracy in the waters around Somalia, where large numbers of Chinese vessels ply the seas, carrying products back to resource and energy-hungry China.

 

Captain Paul Chivers, Chief of Staff of EUNAVFOR Somalia, the European Union's naval operation off the coast of Somalia, told reporters China's decision was "extremely good news and will allow us to surge other assets into the Somali basin, where pirate activity remains at an all-time high."

 

He said it was not clear when China would be ready to assume its role as co-leader of the anti-piracy force.

 

While hijackings in the Gulf of Aden have tapered off, "pirate activity in the Somali basin has grown and grown exponentially," he said.

 

The Somali basin is a huge body of water in the western Indian Ocean, comparable in size to the eastern coast of the United States, Chivers said. Because of its vastness, naval forces monitor the area with surveillance aircraft.

 

Chivers declined to give exact figures on the number of recent pirate attacks, saying there were varying definitions of what constitutes an attack. The important point, he said, is that while the number of pirate attacks has gone up, the pirates' success rate has declined.

 

In all, Somali pirates were held responsible for 217 acts of piracy in 2009 during which 47 vessels were hijacked and 867 crew members taken hostage. By the end of 2009, suspected Somali pirates held 12 vessels for ransom with 263 crew-members of various nationalities as hostages.

 

Somali gunmen hijacked a Cambodian cargo ship off Berbera after it unloaded at the port in Somalia's semi-autonomous northern enclave of Somaliland, a regional maritime official said on January 28.