Shipowners Accused Of Masking Crew Abuse In The Hand Of Pirates

Bloomburg news makes disturbing accusations of shipowner turning a blind eye towards crews torture by Somali pirates. They tell us:

Shipowners are failing to disclose the scope of Somali pirates’ torture of crews off the East African country’s coast to avoid alarming seafarers working in the danger zone, a security adviser said. “It is not in the interests of the shipping industry to make information about crew mistreatment generally available because of the level of mutinies which would take place,” Andrew Palmer, chief executive officer of Idarat Maritime Ltd., which advises owners and governments, said today at a conference in London. The pirates are intensifying the use of torture against crews on ships seized off east Africa to get higher ransom payments from shipowners more quickly, Louisville, Colorado- based One Earth Future Foundation said June 2.

Attacks added between $7 billion and $12 billion in extra transportation costs as ships altered course, paid for extra insurance premiums and employed armed security guards to protect their vessels, One Earth said in January. Information about how hostages are treated is closely held and sometimes classified by the military, according to Kaija Hurlburt, lead researcher on a One Earth report into the human cost of piracy released today. A third of the 1,090 crew held hostage in 2010 were tortured or abused, the foundation said. Continue Reading…