Pirates now go for Nigeria’s little fish
Headlines Saturday, February 26th, 2011
The crew of the Mareena 1 fishing trawler had finished hauling in their catch 25 kilometres off the coast and had settled into their bunks for a few hours of sleep when they were awakened by machine-gun fire.
Nine heavily armed men in a speedboat were strafing their trawler. One of the bullets hit the ship’s cook in the stomach. The cook bled to death, while the pirates boarded the ship, ate, took naps and stole everything that was not welded down.
“There were attacks before, but it’s the worst now,” said Geoffrey, the Mareena’s captain, who gave only his first name because he feared reprisals. “Formerly, we had hijackings and they would steal everything, but now they attack and they are shooting and taking lives.”
After a precipitous rise in the number of attacks in the past year, the waters off the 850-kilometre, or 530-mile, coastline of Nigeria were named the most dangerous in the world last month by a maritime watchdog group. And while kidnapping of foreigners and attacks on oil installations in Nigeria have gained international attention, it is often those with a far lower profile who bear the greatest burden of the lawlessness at sea.
Pirate attacks on fishing trawlers have increased from four reported cases in 2003 to 107 in 2007, said the Nigerian Trawler Owners Association. In January of this year alone, there were 50 attacks on fishing boats, 20 in one week, during which 10 sailors were killed.
Until recently, Africa’s largest supplier of crude oil and the fifth biggest exporter of oil to America, Nigeria has for years been dogged by violence and kidnappings in its oil-producing Niger Delta region. Some of the violence was politically motivated but the bulk of it was simple criminality, officials said.
After more than 200 foreigners were kidnapped in the Niger Delta in 2007, and not content to rely on a vastly undermanned and inefficient Nigerian Navy, foreign oil companies increased security and pulled out all non-essential employees. With foreign vessels no longer an easy target, pirates have looked elsewhere for victims.
They found them in the defenceless fishing trawlers that chug up and down the coastlines, never far enough from shore to be out of reach of the pirates’ speedboats.
The surge in deadly attacks on fishing crews caused the Nigerian Trawlers Association to call its entire fleet, nearly 200 vessels, back to shore in February. That meant a work stoppage for an estimated 20,000 workers and the drying up of the bulk of the local fish market.
Although the domestic market makes up just 20 per cent of the total amount of fish consumed in Nigeria, that percentage has decreased steadily in the past five years because of the rise of offshore violence, according to a study in 2007 by the United States. Department of Agriculture.
A visit to a fish market in Lagos found Comfort Ajayi, a 50-year-old fish seller, standing amid rows of empty tables. “These tables are usually completely full,” she said. “We’re only selling imported fish now. No local. It’s affecting us very much.”
After weeks of protests and negotiations, the navy assured fishing companies that their fleets would be protected, and boat owners warily sent their trawlers back out to sea. “There is no way that they can say security anywhere is 100 per cent, but we’re not sleeping over it. In the next couple of months, they will be comfortable,” Rear Admiral Ishaya Ibrahim said. “We beefed up the security accordingly to guarantee them free and peaceful fishing activities.”
Just days after the navy’s promise, three trawlers were attacked and one crew was taken hostage into the labyrinthine creeks of the Niger Delta.
The bulky fishing trawlers are no match for the speedboats the pirates use, or their weapons. The pirates, who attacked the Mareena, took radar and sonar equipment, radios, cellphones, the sailors’ pocket money and thin mattresses, even their shoes and socks.
“How can we send them back out to sea when we can’t guarantee their safety?” said Paul Kirubakaran, manager of SeaBless, one of the country’s larger fishing companies.
Many sailors wonder if it is worth going back to sea. Godwin, 34, a sailor who would give only his first name, said: “They are killing us. I’ve been sailing for 15 years and the pirate thing got worse last year. Before, if they came, if you gave them fish or money, they will leave you. Now they’ll kill you. Before you go on a fishing vessel, you have to think twice.”
Source: The New York Times
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