Thekey anchorages at Karimun, Nipah and Santan appear to be the main targets, whileauthorities at Gresik and Dumai are urging vessels to exercise caution due to arisk of piracy.
Italso appears that vessels undergoing ship-to-ship (STS) transfers areparticularly vulnerable, according to the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre.
Inone incident Hansa Treuhand’s 113,000-dwt tanker HS Carmen (built 2003) was targetedat Santan Anchorage by knife wielding robbers.
On5 October the ship’s duty crew noticed movements at the forecastle, and afterinforming the bridge, proceeded to investigate.
Uponreaching the forecastle the robbers threatened the crew and then escaped. The crewwere able to retrieve the stores which the robbers were trying to steal.
Reportssay port authorities were informed of the incident which took place at almost1am, but no response was received.
In another case on 7 October two tankers carrying out an STS operation wereeach attacked by separate teams of robbers.
The incident tookplace in the Karimun Transhipment Area, but fortunately the alarm was raisedand nothing was stolen.
“Regular attacks continue to take place in Indonesian andlittoral waters, with a mixed response from the authorities. It is also likelythat a lot of attacks are going unreported,” say security consultants AKEMaritime.
Shipowners operating in Indonesia face one of the highestchances of a piracy attack in the world where around one-third of sea crimesoccur.
Almost all attacks are opportunistic‘smash and grab’ type robberies on vessels in port or at anchor, according toAKE intelligence analyst Rory Lamrock.
