Somali Pirates: Proactive Deterrence

Reported here

Today, a helicopter from the EU NAVFOR German warship BREMEN, identified suspected pirate craft in the Somali Basin. The suspect craft were made up of a mother skiff and two smaller skiffs, near the islands of Seychelles (0109S 5355E).

The EU NAVFOR helicopter fired warning shots and the skiffs stopped. The crew from the helicopter observed that the suspected pirates threw a number of items over board. A boarding party from the German warship found on the skiff grappling hooks, ammunition, GPS and 10 barrels of fuel. The skiffs had no fishing equipment onboard and after confiscating the suspected pirate equipment the mother skiff and crew were released.

You might note that the incident occurred about 600 miles off the Somali coast, or about 3x the distance of any "Exclusive Economic Zone" Somalia could claim:

Article57

Breadth of the exclusive economic zone

The exclusive economic zone shall not extend beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.