A Joint Report
The EastAfrican
The Kenyan port of Mombasa is scrambling to counter an international campaign to have the Somali Coast declared a "war zone" by shipping organisations, a move which could cost the facility billions of shillings every year.
The influential British shipping union NUMAST, the International Transport Workers Federation and the International Maritime Bureau have launched the campaign in which ships coming to the port and to other southern destinations will be travelling under armed escort. This is expected to send insurance, freight and shipping charges up sharply.
The British union is pursuing the issue both at the United Nations and with the international shipping industry following the rise in the number of piracy incidents off the Somali coast over the past six months. The last incident was the attempted hijack of the cruiseship Seabourn Spirit last month.
If the area off the East Africa coast is declared a war zone, ships and freight companies will be forced to take on insurance and contigency plans similar to those required of vessels travelling in combat zones or in waters that are mined. About 25 ships that dock weekly at Mombasa pass through Somali coastal waters.
Last year, the Kenya Ports Authority collected Ksh10 billion ($133 million) from ships that docked at and received general port services at the facility.
KPA senior public relations officer Bernard Osero told The EastAfrican last week: "There have been serious concerns in the shipping industry about the safety of the Somali coastline, but this is not likely to affect us for now. Last year, we made a profit of Ksh3 billion ($40 million) from the Ksh10 billion ($133 million) revenue collected and so far it's still business as usual."
He said the Authority had approached the International Maritime Organisation so that they could jointly persuade the German military to resume its patrols along the Somali coastline. "The German military used to patrol the Somali coastline in the past, and we have been holding talks to see whether they can resume the exercise to keep the pirates away," he said.
NUMAST's general secretary, Brian Orrell, said, "Seafarers are paying the price for the appalling political inertia that has prevented any meaningful action to deal with this long-running and serious problem."
NUMAST, which represents some 19,000 shipmasters, officers and other maritime professionals, says the threat to maritime trade, lives, safety and the environment is so great in some hotspots like Somalia that naval protection is essential.
The World Food Programme, which has borne the brunt of the attacks during its extensive humanitarian operations in the lawless territory, has threatened to suspend all food deliveries by water if the issue is not tackled internationally. It is planning alternative routes including overland through Djibouti.
"It is scandalous that a small number of profiteers should once again hijack humanitarian food supplies destined for fellow Somalis," WFP country director Robert Hauser said recently.
It is a sentiment shared by one of its contracted shipping agents, Motaku Shipping Agencies, a Kenyan company whose ships are among those hijacked by Somali pirates this year. Its managing director, Karim Kudrati, says that sending ships to the wartorn country has become extremely risky.
"It is highly likely that freight insurance costs are going to go up because the risks involved are high. There is no doubt that the increased pirate attacks will translate into higher insurance premiums soon," he said.
Ship hijacking and demands for ransom have become a lucrative business in Somalia, where the ransoms are used by the pirates (most of them organised by warlords) to acquire more arms and faster attack boats, mostly from the Middle East.
According to the KPA's harbour master and chief operating manager, Twalib Khamis, vessels coming into the port sail over 320 kilometres off the Somali coast, meaning that they have to spend more time at sea.
"That has an impact on the freight rate of the cargo which is coming to Mombasa," he said last week. "International companies, which insure vessels plying the Indian Ocean, are already talking about an additional insurance premium."
The port of Mombasa is the major shipment point for coffee and tea exports, two of Kenya's largest foreign-exchange earners. It is also a key gateway for the imports and exports of Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, eastern Congo, southern Sudan and Ethiopia.
Lloyds of London, the world's biggest freight insurance company, has blacklisted the Somali coast and advised ships to sail at least 100 nautical miles from the coastline. The insurer's agent in Kenya, McLarens Young International, which has offices in both Nairobi and Mombasa, says the hijackings have raised serious concerns within the shipping industry.
"The trouble is that nobody is sure of the exact locations of the pirates, so the risks are high as at now. Although all the underwriting is done in Europe and the US and the premiums are yet to be adjusted, shipping companies have been advised to minimise the risks by keeping away from the coastline," said marine manager Joseph Kamomoe.
NUMAST wants a UN co-ordinated force of ships, backed up by aerial surveillance, to be deployed off the coast of East Africa to deter attacks on shipping. Without such a deterrent, the British union says there will be a growing risk of substantial loss of life or a major environmental disaster.
The union's call has been backed by the International Transport Workers Federation, which urged International Maritime Organisation leader Efthimios Mitropoulos to bring in the Security Council to "organise the necessary intervention."
"The Security Council will have to ask how many more attacks there need to be before real action is taken," said John Bainbridge of the ITF.
"We must bite the bullet and admit that as a unified nation, Somalia has ceased to exist. That may well mean that other countries will have to enter its waters and take over the duties that it can no longer carry out."
The two unions calls have already been backed by a number of shipowners groups as well as the International Maritime Bureau. The IMB says that Somalia is one of the few places in the world where piracy has increased substantially in the past year and it has urged all ships travelling in the area to give the coastline an extremely wide berth.
IMB executive director Captain Pottengal Mukundan has also urged international action against the pirates, saying that unless this happened, Somalia "could become a haven for criminals who may feel encouraged to extend their activities to a wider region." He added that there were now strong suspicions that Somali warlords were behind the attacks.
Both the IMB and NUMAST have noted the increasingly violent nature of the piracy attacks off the Somali coast, involving the use of sophisticated weapons like rocket-propelled grenades.
The IMB has also appealed to ships in the area to come to each other's aid if attacked to prevent vessels being taken into Somali waters.
But it has also warned that all ships should give the Somali coast the widest possible berth.
Two Kenyan registered ships, the mvTorgelow, whose crew were attacked near the port of El Mann, and the mv Semlow have since been released after being held captive for nearly three months are amongst the most recent attacks. The crew of mv Torgelow, which was released last week, are yet to arrive in Mombasa.