[Gold Lion ®]

$150M in ransoms paid to pirates

More than $150 million have been paid to pirates around the Horn of Africa over the past 12 months, Kenya’s foreign minister said Friday.
The supertanker Sirius Star is the biggest vessel seized by pirates this year.

The money is encouraging them to continue and become more brazen in their attacks, Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula told a news conference in the Kenyan capital.

“That is why they are becoming more and more audacious in their activities,” Wetangula said.

Pirate activity off the coastline of east Africa is a cause of growing international concern.

Last weekend pirates, who mostly operate from lawless Somalia, seized a Saudi-owned supertanker Sirius Star, the largest vessel captured to date. Another seized vessel, the Ukrainian MV Faina, was carrying a cargo of military supplies and T-72 tanks.

They currently hold 17 vessels and are estimated to have attacked more than 90 ships in the region so far this year, according to the International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Center, which monitors piracy around the world. The attacks have increased in recent weeks, the PRC says.

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Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/af...tml#cnnSTCText