Piracy kidnappings

Piracy kidnappings occur during piracy, when people are kidnapped by pirates or taken hostage. Article 1 of the United Nations International Convention against the Taking of Hostages defines a hostage-taker as "any person who seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure, or to continue to detain another person (hereinafter referred to as the 'hostage') in order to compel a third party namely, a State, an international intergovernmental organization, a natural or Juridical person, or a group of people, to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition tor the release of the hostage commits the offense of taking of hostages ("hostage-taking") within the meaning of this convention."[1] Kidnappers often try to obtain the largest financial reward possible in exchange for hostages, but piracy kidnappings can also be politically motivated.[2]

The coast of Somalia has been a piracy hot spot since the late 1990s, threatening state security and global trade.[3] During the early 2000s, the international community established multilateral anti-piracy initiatives such as the Combined Task Force 150; in 2008, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) enacted Resolution 1816 to combat piracy in the Somali region. The number of incidents decreased in that region after the international initiatives, but increased in West Africa (especially in the Gulf of Guinea).[4][5] In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) saw an increase in kidnappings in the Gulf of Guinea; 95 percent of all kidnappings of crew members of hijacked vessels took place in the gulf.[6][7]

  1. ^ "International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages. New York, 17 December 1979" (PDF). United Nations Treaty Convention. United Nations. Retrieved 21 December 2021.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Shane was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Reva, Denys (2018). "Ten years on, is Somali piracy still a threat?". Institute for Security Studies. 7 November 2018.
  4. ^ HDI Global (2020). "Maritime piracy rises again in 2020". 4 March 2021.
  5. ^ BBC World Services, 2021. "Why is the Gulf of Guinea a piracy hotspot?". Africa Daily. Retrieved 26 March 2021.
  6. ^ Gard (2020). "Maritime piracy hotspots persist during 2020".
  7. ^ International Chamber of Commerce (2020). "Gulf of Guinea records highest ever number of crew kidnapped in 2020, according to IMB's annual piracy report".