AFP/FileSimon Maina
Boosting cooperation between west African navies is crucial to curbing pirate attacks, the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) said Friday, a week after two American sailors were kidnapped off Nigeria.
West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea has been described as an emerging piracy hub where violent sea raids have spiked in recent years, according to some estimates.
Following the October 23 abduction of two US citizens from an oil servicing vessel off southern Nigeria, the White House said it was disturbed by rising criminality in the Gulf of Guinea, a key commercial transport route, especially for west African oil heading to world refineries.
“I would characterise west Africa as an area where the information sharing between countries and with industry needs to improve,” Phillip J. Heyl, chief of the Air and Maritime Branch at AFRICOM, told AFP.
Heyl drew a contrast to east Africa, a region once hit hard by Somali pirates, where navies and private firms have been able to effectively share information on sea crimes.
Coordination in west Africa has been hindered by the high number of states concerned and by language barriers between French-speaking and anglophone countries, Heyl said.
“Because you have a lot of countries, sovereignty issues have been a complication in the past,” he said.
Some attacks could be prevented if navies had a mechanism to warn neighbours about suspicious ships, Heyl said.
But there are reasons to be optimistic, he added, noting that west and central African states have publicly acknowledged the severity of the problem.
Heyl described an anti-piracy accord reached in June as “the first time the political will has been demonstrated at the top” level in terms of tackling maritime crime.
Despite being a regional problem, analysts say much of the unrest originates in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and top oil producer.
Vessels linked to the oil industry have repeatedly been attacked.
Following the abductions last week, some suggested the Americans had been targeted, but Heyl said it was premature to speculate on whether pirates in the Gulf of Guinea are attacking ships based on the nationalities of crew members.
“We don’t have enough information to make those kind of conclusions yet,” he said.
Nigeria’s navy has said it has launched a rescue operation to retrieve the two Americans, the captain and chief engineer of a US-flagged C-Retriever owned by American oil servicing company Edison Chouest Offshore.
Foreigners kidnapped in the Gulf of Guinea have typically been released days or weeks after being abducted. Experts assume that ransoms are paid, but neither the governments nor companies involved comment on payments to kidnappers.
