(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-01-10 07:46

Global pirate attacks rose by 10 percent in 2007, marking the first increase in three years as sea robbers made a strong comeback in Nigeria and Somalia, an international maritime watchdog said Wednesday.

Last year, there were 269 attacks on ships, up from 239 in 2006 and reversing a downtrend seen since 2003, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said in its annual report released by its piracy reporting center in Malaysia.

"The significant increase in the (2007) numbers can be directly attributed to the increase in the incidents in Nigeria and Somalia," IMB director Pottengal Mukundan said in a statement.

Attacks in Nigeria surged to 42 from 12 cases in 2006, he said. Somalia reported a threefold increase of 31 cases, from 10 in 2006.

The IMB report said pirates were better armed and more violent in 2007, with 18 vessels hijacked worldwide, 292 crew members taken hostage, five killed and three still missing.

Guns were used in 72 attacks, up 35 percent from 2006. It said 64 crew members were assaulted and injured, compared to only 17 in 2006, with majority of the incidents occurring off Somali's coast.

The report said pirates used rocket propelled grenade launchers and automatic weapons as well as mother vessels to launch smaller craft to attack ships further away from Somali's coast.

Somalia's 3,025-km coastline is the longest in Africa and near to key shipping routes connecting the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean. Wracked by 16 years of violence and anarchy, Somalia does not have its own navy and the transitional government formed in 2004 with UN help has struggled to assert control.

The IMB urged ships to stay as far away as possible from the Somali coastline.

In Nigeria - Africa's oil producer - attacks were focused in hotspots like Lagos, and some were linked to so-called militants claiming to pursue political goals, the report said.

Indonesia remained the world's hottest piracy hotspot with 43 attacks last year, but this was down from 50 cases in 2006 and were mainly low-level crimes, the report said.

The IMB also applauded authorities in Bangladesh for curbing attacks to 15 last year, down from 47 in 2006.

Cases in the Malacca Strait, a bustling shipping route that carries half the world's oil and more than a third of its commerce, also fell for a third successive year to seven, from 11 in 2006, it said.