ADF STAFF
Shipowners operating in the Gulf of Guinea received a piracy alert in June 2023 after pirates attacked a Swiss bulk carrier vessel and injured some of its crew off Conakry, Guinea.
Four criminals with weapons boarded the ship and stole money from a safe before fleeing, according to TradeWinds, a shipping news source. It was one of the latest piracy incidents recorded in West Africa after years of declining attacks, including 81 in 2020, 34 in 2021 and just three in 2022.
To address piracy, illegal fishing and other sea crimes, Benin, Nigeria and Togo in mid-September 2023 conducted a five-day maritime security operation known as Operation Safe Domain II.
Launched from Benin’s Cotonou Port Naval Base, the operation featured patrol boats from Benin and Togo, and a Nigerian aircraft. The nations are members of Maritime Zone E, part of the Yaoundé Architecture for Maritime Security and Safety.
West Africa loses as much as
$9.4 billion annually due to illegal fishing, mostly by China, which has the world’s largest distant-water fishing fleet and the world’s worst illegal fishing record, according to the IUU Fishing Index. The index monitors illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.
Chinese bottom trawlers catch an estimated 2.35 million tons of fish a year in the region, accounting for 50% of China’s total distant-water catch and worth about $5 billion, the Environmental Justice Foundation reported.
Commodore Richard Shammah, director of the Regional Maritime Security Coordination Centre, West Africa, said countries are becoming more aware of the economic value their waters hold, and that for a country’s blue economy to prosper, its maritime domain must be secure.
“This operation is necessary so that we can have a sea line of communication and trade and no one country can do it alone, hence the collaborative effort,” Shammah said during the operation. “It is my prayers that the aim and objectives of this collaboration shall be achieved because it will also tend to develop capacity with our navies.”
The Pew Charitable Trusts highlighted the importance of collaboration and cooperation to eliminate the scourge in a 2023 report titled, “To End Illegal Fishing, Countries Must Work Together.” The report argues that regional coordination can help countries counter specific crimes such as transshipment, the practice of transferring fish from a fishing vessel to a refrigerated cargo ship. Also known as “saiko,” the practice lets vessels avoid catch limits.
“Increasing regional cooperation and coordination is a hard but necessary step to help stamp out IUU fishing, improve ocean health, and bring benefits — including international credibility — to all States involved,” wrote the report’s authors, Katherine Hanly and Tahiana Fajardo Vargas.
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