ReCAAP: Asian Piracy Up in May
Singapore-headquartered anti-piracy watchdog ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre (ReCAAP ISC) posted a 19% increase in the number of reported incidents to 20 cases in May 2015 as compared with April 2015.
Among 20 incidents were reported in Asia, of which two were acts of piracy and 18 were incidents of robbery onboard ship. Graph shows the number of incidents reported in May 2015 compared to the same period in the past four years (2011-2014).
Of the 20 incidents reported in May 2015, 14 incidents occurred onboard ships while underway and six onboard ships at anchor/berth.
A total of 11 incidents occurred in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore (SOMS); of which 10 were actual incidents and one was an attempted incident. Of these, seven were petty theft incidents.
There was a Category 1 incident involving the siphoning of fuel/oil from a Singapore registered petroleum product tanker, Ocean Energy in the Malacca Strait. The other incidents were mostly opportunistic in nature as the perpetrators were targeting ship stores that were movable and easily removed, such as paints, ropes or coils.
Similar to previous trends, majority of the incidents reported in SOMS occurred when the vessels were underway in the eastbound lane of the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS). Eight of the 11 incidents reported in the eastbound lane of the TSS in May 2015. Please refer to Map 1 below on the approximate location of the 11 incidents occurred in SOMS.
