A recent increase in piracy attacks, both at sea and in port, is threatening food aid for up to a million people in Somalia and has increased fears that disorder in the lawless country — which has not had any government since 1991 — could spread instability and fear throughout the Indian Ocean region.

Gunmen hijacked a United Nations-chartered vessel, the MV Miltzow, on Tuesday in the southern port of Merca, 60 miles south of Mogadishu, and forced the crew to sail towards Kenya. It was the second such attack in less than 24 hours.

Leo van der Velden, the deputy director for the United Nations World Food Programme in Somalia, said: “Talks are under way between the owners and the hijackers. These people are just stealing food out of the mouths of suffering fellow Somalis.”

The MV Miltzow was sighted yesterday off the small fishing port of Brava, about 50 miles south of Merca, which is a known refuge of a local militia gang. The hijackers usually demand a hefty ransom for the return of the crew and vessel, but always keep the cargo. If the owners do not pay, the crew may be held hostage for months and even killed.

Three Taiwanese fishing vessels and their crews have been held hostage on an island off the southern port of Kismayu for nearly six months.

The increased number of attacks is blamed on previous pay-offs and a decline in opportunities for criminal activity elsewhere as aid organisations have reduced their onshore operations because of the lack of security.

The International Maritime Bureau describes Somalia’s piracy problem as “the most serious in the world”. It reports that there have been 21 incidents off the Somali coast since March 15, making it as dangerous a stretch of water for piracy as the infamous Strait of Malacca in the Far East.

Since the fall of the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, Somalia territory has been carved up between rival warlords and their militias. And since the start of the US-led war against terrorism, radical Islamic fugitives, some from Yemen and Afghanistan, have made Somalia even more dangerous for Westerners.

Weapons used in bomb attacks in Kenya and elsewhere in East Africa have been identified as having come from Somalia. Three East African suspects in the attempted London bombings of July 21 all had links with the country. Recent violence on the Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar has also been linked to Somalia.

Unscrupulous fishing companies, many with connections to Japan, China and Taiwan, have for years paid backhanders to Somalia’s regional warlords for the right to fish the waters off their respective fiefdoms. Flush with easy pickings from that trade, warlords recently began seizing commercial vessels.

The MV Torgelow, a cargo ship, was seized on Monday off the southern Somali coast as it headed north towards the ruined capital and main port of Mogadishu. Its fate is not yet known.

MURKY WATERS

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