1) Blue Border Holdings has confirmed that the attack on LNG Galicia Spirit which took place on Tuesday 25th October on position Lat. 12:32.6N, Long. 043:32.8E, was indeed conducted by Somali pirates and was not an act of terrorism. The vessel has been hit by small arms fire and reports indicate that an explosion occured. The attacking skiff was amongst a group of 3 which however the remaining 2 did not participate in the attack. The vessel was NOT carrying an armed security team on board. The M/V managed to evade the attack and all crew members were unharmed.
Tuesday’s incident was the first attack on a commercial vessel since July however in the past weeks, several military vessels came under fire whilst transiting the Bab el Mandeb straight.

2) On 22nd October, a tanker, the CPO Korea reported being approached and attacked by a skiff with 5-6 POB while underway in position Lat. 04:28.1N, Long. 053:22.2E, 300NM off the Somali basin coast. During the attack a considerable amount of shots were exchanged between the pirates and the armed security team on board the vessel. The skiff eventually broke contact and moved away. No casualties have been reported.

3) In the early hours of Friday 28th October, an Iranian fishing vessel with 10 crew members on board was reportedly hijacked while in position 150NM South of Socotra Island. Information about this incident is still coming in and the whereabouts of the fishing vessel and its crew are still unknown.
4) As the South Western monsoon has come to an end, the activities of skiffs and dhows in the High Risk Area (HRA) have increased drastically in the region. This good weather could be interpreted by Somali pirates as a time to return to piracy, especially since fewer vessels are employing security teams and transiting in the HRA without any BMP4 measures. This reduction of security measures was evident in the Oceans Beyond Piracy 2016 report.
5) Blue Border Holdings recommends the employment of Armed Security Teams to be deployed onboard commercial vessels as a surge of possible more aggressive piracy activity has been observed throughout these last few weeks.
Report provided by Blue Border Holdings Risk Monitoring Department.

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