Concern is mounting over a resurgence of pirate raids off Somalia, as fears are raised that they will try to capitalize on the disruption Yemen’s Houthis have caused with attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The latest incident is the seizure of the MV Abdullah which had departed with a crew of 23 from Maputo, Mozambique carrying 55,000 tons of coal to the United Arab Emirates. It is owned by SR Shipping Limited, a subsidiary of the KSRM group.

A week later, the Abdullah is anchored off the coast of Somalia.

Raids pile up risks and costs for shipping companies who are also facing drone and missile attacks from Yemen’s Houthis in the Red Sea and other nearby waters.

More than 20 attempted hijackings have occurred since November, driving up prices for armed security guards and insurance coverage while potentially raising costs and the potential for ransom payments, industry officials said.

Two Somali gang members told Reuters they were taking advantage of the Houthi attacks that have drawn global attention.

“They took advantage of this opportunity because the international naval forces operating off Somalia have reduced their activities,” said a pirate using the pseudonym Ismail Isse.

The waterways off Somalia include some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Each year, an estimated 20,000 ships, carrying everything from furniture and clothing to grain and fuel, pass through the Gulf of Aden on their way to and from the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, the shortest sea route between Europe and Asia.

At their peak in 2011, Somali pirates launched 237 attacks and took hundreds of hostages, the International Maritime Bureau said.

That year, the monitoring group Oceans Beyond Piracy estimated that their activities cost the global economy about $7 billion, including hundreds of millions of dollars in ransoms.

The pace of attacks today is significantly lower, with pirates mainly targeting smaller ships in less patrolled waters, marine risk managers and insurers said. Since November, at least two cargo ships and 12 fishing vessels have been successfully seized, according to its data EUNAVFOR.

But the mission – which by February had identified up to five so-called piracy groups operating in the eastern Gulf of Aden and the Somalia Basin – warned that the end of the monsoon season this month could drive them further south and east.

Their raids have expanded the size of the area for which insurers charge additional war risk premiums to ships. Those premiums become more expensive for trips through the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to the price of a typical seven-day trip, insurance industry officials said.

The growing demand for private armed guards is also driving up prices. The cost of hiring a team for three days jumped about 50 percent in February on a monthly basis, to between $4,000 and $15,000, maritime security sources said.

Security experts say there is no evidence of direct links between the Houthis and Somali pirates.
In response to the raids a decade ago, shipping companies have stepped up security measures on board while operations to protect them have been led by NATO, the European Union and the United States.

Up to 20 warships from 14 different countries patrolled the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean shipping lanes – an area the size of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea combined – at any one time.

The measures effectively eliminated piracy attacks. But as the threat receded, the countries involved reduced the number of warships, said John Steed, former head of the counter-piracy unit at the UN Political Office for Somalia.