Cargo/Vessel piracy is a real and serious business and the coast of Somalia is possibly the riskiest waterway in the world. For some time now cargo vessels have been attacked and seized off the coast of Somalia, with the pirates shaking down ship owners and insurance companies for hefty ransoms. While there is the occasional report on such occurrences, it never really made big news.

I guess the pirates weren’t content to simply seize cargo vessels and their crew, they’re reaching for worldwide recognition this time, upping the ante considerably. For the first time, that I am aware of, they have targeted a passenger cruise ship, this one from France. The news wires are all over the story now that a mess of passengers is involved. Via Time/CNN:

Pirates seized control of a French cruise ship Friday off the coast of Somalia, France’s Foreign Ministry said.
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The ship is in the high seas in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Somalia in the Indian Ocean.

The official declined to identify the vessel or its owner.

The ministry has set up a crisis center to deal with the situation, said the official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Pirates seized more than two dozen ships off the Somali coast last year.

The U.S. Navy has led international patrols to try to combat piracy in the region. Last year, the guided missile destroyer USS Porter opened fire to destroy pirate skiffs tied to a Japanese tanker.

The Tocqueville Connection has much more:

The yacht, the Ponant, “was the victim of an act of piracy early this afternoon as it was sailing between Somalia and Yemen,” spokesman Christophe Prazuck said.
The 850-tonne three-masted yacht was carrying around 30 crew but had no passengers on board at the time, Prazuck said.
“As far as we know, no shots have been fired,” he said.
French military forces in the area and a Djibouti-based US-led multinational force, Combined Task Force 150, “were able to confirm the situation and are following its evolution,” he added.
France has a patrol aircraft based in Djibouti, as well as a dispatch boat.
French shipping group CMA-CGM confirmed that one of its boats had been seized in the Gulf of Aden, on its way from the Seychelle islands to the Mediterranean, and that “the majority” of the crew were French nationals.
“The ship is indeed the Ponant, property of the CMA-CGM group. We were informed that there were pirates on board,” a company spokesman said.

So luckily it turns out that no passengers seem to be aboard, but the fact that this time they have brazenly attacked a passenger cruise ship instead of a cargo vessel raises the stakes drastically. If the pirates of Somalia hovered below the radar in the past, they are certainly on everyone’s radar now. Hopefully they’ll do the smart thing and let the vessel and it’s crew go without harm, most likely after an expensive negotiation with CMA-CGM. The problem with this, of course, is that by constantly rewarding piracy it only encourages more of the same. And if they can get more cash by targeting passenger vessels instead of cargo then we can expect more such attacks in the future.

If any of the people on board are harmed or mis-treated, ransom paid or not, I imagine France, possibly with help from the U.S. or other Western powers, will drop the hammer on these people. And if Somalia piracy wasn’t on the map before, it certainly is now.

Update: On a lighter note, A Second Hand Conjecture sees a correlation between pirates and global warming.

Update: And on a more serious note, a blog authored by a retired submarine officer notes that the current commander of Combined Task Force 150 is a French Rear Admiral “…so action should be swift.” Here’s a link to CTF 150’s web page.

Update: The story is now the second-most e-mailed news item according to Yahoo! News as well as the most-viewed.

Updated April 7th: Hat tip to Bubblehead, the retired submarine officer’s blog mentioned above, who links to these detailed updates from EagleSpeak, a blog written by a retired Navy Reserve Captain. As EagleSpeak reported, the cruise ship is being shadowed by a French warship and supposedly a rescue mission is being contemplated.

Updated: Ok, so my update is a little late, but it appears that the shipowner, like most, paid some kind of a ransom but French troops captured 6 pirates after the hostages were released and some of the money seems to have been recovered:

French Gen. Jean-Louis Georgelin said no public money was used to pay a ransom. But he hinted heavily that the boat’s owners did hand over money, and that some was recovered when the pirates were caught. French troops had recovered “interesting bags,” he said.

French shipping company CMA-CGM, which owns the operator of the 288-foot Le Ponant, hailed the end of the standoff but released no details about the operation.

The six captured pirates were being held on a French Navy vessel, the president’s office said. They “gave themselves up without too much difficulty” and will be handed over to French judicial authorities, Georgelin said.

EagleSpeak has more, including video and a link to more.

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