MARITIME SAFETY COMMITTEE
71st session
Agenda item 15
MSC 71/15
15 March 1999
Original: ENGLISH
PIRACY AND ARMED ROBBERY AGAINST SHIPS
Annual, quarterly and monthly reports
Note by the Secretariat
SUMMARY
Executive summary: 1998 annual, quarterly and monthly reports on acts of piracy and armed robbery against ships
Action to be taken: Paragraph 9
Related documents: MSC/Circ.903
1 The Committee, at its sixty-fifth session in May 1995, instructed the Secretariat to issue, as from 31 July 1995, monthly reports of all incidents of piracy and armed robbery against ships reported to the Organization and, in addition, on a quarterly basis, composite reports accompanied by an analysis, on a regional basis, of the situation and an indication whether the frequency of incidents is increasing or decreasing and advising on any new feature or pattern of significance.
2 At its sixty-sixth session in June 1996, the Committee (MSC 66/24, paragraph 16.6) instructed the Secretariat to prepare, after March of every year, an annual summary of all acts of piracy and armed robbery against ships, which had occurred during the previous year and had been reported to the Organization, based on their actual date and time of occurrence.
3 Information on reports of piracy and armed robbery against ships received by the Secretariat since 1984, when relevant statistics started being compiled and, in particular, those that occurred in the course of 1998 as well as a regional analysis thereof, has been circulated by means of MSC/Circ.903.
4 The number of acts of piracy and armed robbery against ships which occurred in 1998, as reported to the Organization, was 210, a decrease of 42 (17%) over the figure for 1997.
5 From the information referred to above, it emerges that the areas most affected in 1998 (i.e. five incidents reported or more) were the Far East in particular the South China Sea and the Malacca Strait, South America and the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and West and East Africa. Over the period under review, the number of incidents reported to have occurred decreased from 8 to 6 in the Malacca Strait from 101 to 94 in the South China Sea, from 45 to 38 in South America and the Carribbean, from 41 to 25 in the Indian Ocean from 11 to 2 in the Mediterranean and Black Seas and from 30 to 22 in West Africa but increased from 11 to 19 in East Africa over the figure for 1997. Most of the attacks worldwide were reported in territorial waters while the ships were at anchor or berthed. In many of the reports received, the crews were violently attacked by groups of one to five people carrying guns.
