CAIRO (dpa) – Pirates in the Gulf of Guinea are using heavy weapons and targeting rich cargo ships to ratchet up profits to the max, the United Nations said Monday. Piracy, which was a decade ago largely unheard of on Africa's west coast, has become systematic, with pirates resorting to increasingly sophisticated tactics compared to those used by marauders off the coast of Somalia, the top UN political affairs officer, B Lynn Pascoe, told the UN Security Council. Ten attacks were reported in January and February alone, on ships off the coasts of Benin, Congo, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Niger. A total of 64 incidents were reported in 2010 in the Gulf of Guinea. Pascoe said recent attacks have reached “worrisome proportions” because they affected economic development in the region. He pointed out that not all acts of piracy have been reported to the International Maritime Organization. The UN Security Council last week discussed Somalia's piracy problem and this week held talks on the situation in Africa's west coast. Pirates in the Gulf of Guinea target ships carrying lucrative cargo while Somali pirates take hostages for ransom. The UN estimated Somali pirates received 170 million dollars in ransom last year, demanding 5 million dollars for a ship and crew and 10 million dollars for a tanker. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/fNUFd Tags: Pirates, Somali, UN Section: East Africa, Latest News
