THE seas off Somalia, where armed pirates attacked a cruise liner at the weekend, should be declared a war zone, a maritime union said yesterday.

Piracy has become the scourge of the shipping industry, with 30 crew members murdered in attacks around the world last year. Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades have replaced cutlasses and cannonballs in the pirates’ armoury, but the aim of boarding, looting or stealing ships has remained the same. There is growing concern that neither governments nor the shipping industry are doing enough to protect crews and cargoes and that ships are vulnerable to terrorists as well as pirates.

Numast, the maritime union, will meet the Chamber of Shipping in London this week to demand that the waters off Somalia, where there have been 25 attacks on shipping since March, be designated a combat area.

Such a declaration would give crew members the right to refuse to sail there, force shipowners to recruit extra staff for security duties, entitle crews to danger money and guarantee seafarers insurance cover.

The union is also lobbying the British Government to toughen its advice on piracy to shipowners, which is expected to be published this month. The forthcoming UK Maritime Notice advises shipping companies to adopt security measures but does not require them to do so.

Somalia, which has not had a recognised government since 1991 and where law and order is in the grip of warlords, has emerged as one of the world’s piracy hotspots.

The International Maritime Bureau told shipping this year not to sail within 50 miles of the Somalian coast and currently advises vessels to “keep as far away as possible”.

The bureau, which runs a piracy reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur, says Somalian waters are “a pirates’ charter”. It advises ships to fit tracking devices and use electrified fences to repel boarders. The response of the pirates has to become more audacious, sailing further out in high-speed inflatable boats to attack vessels. One attack was reported 120 miles out to sea.

This year a ship carrying a World Food Programme cargo into Somalia was seized by pirates and held for more than 14 weeks. A sister vessel that went to provide provisions to the hostage ship was also seized.

On Saturday morning the Bahamas-registered Seabourn Spirit, with 18 Britons among its 302 passengers, was 100 miles off Somalia when it was attacked. The pirates fired machine guns and grenades as they attempted to board. The liner’s crew, which had received special training, warded off the attack by setting off a sonic bang. Modern pirates emerged in the late 1970s off West Africa and then in the Far East — where Indonesian waters have become the most dangerous in the world.

“Everyone in the industry agrees that the attacks are becoming more sophisticated and more violent,” Andrew Linnington, of Numast, said. “We are now seeing ships stolen to order. Pirates will board a ship, cast the crew adrift, or sometimes kill them, before installing their own crew and sailing the vessel to a port where it is re-registered and renamed.

“Ships are very prone to attack. They are slow moving and cargo ships are low in the water, making it easy for pirates to climb on board.

“For most governments it is a problem that is out of sight and therefore out of mind, which is a ridiculous attitude given that 90 per cent of global trade is transported by sea,” he added.

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