Seafarer kidnappings on the rise

AT THIS time of the year the annual piracy statistics appear. It seems incredible that in the second decade of 21st century we are still talking about piracy. For most people outside the shipping industry, pirates are just the stuff of Hollywood films and the history books.

While piracy is in fact still very much with us, at first glance the statistics appear to show things improved last year. There were 191 incidents of piracy and armed robbery on the world's seas last year, according to the ICC International Maritime Bureau (IMB). This was a big drop compared to 2015 when 246 incidents were recorded.

Those figures mask a sinister trend. There were three times as many kidnappings with 62 people captured and held to ransom in 15 separate incidents in 2016.