Philippines Authorizes Armed Guards

The Philippines has approved the use of private armed guards aboard Manila-flagged vessels to protect Filipino seafarers from Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. Permission was granted by the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Pirates in east Africa continue to hold 26 Filipino seamen hostage on board three foreign-flagged vessels.

“The longest one in detention is a crew member of the Iceberg 1, which was hijacked on Jan. 29, 2010, off the Port of Aden in Yemen,” a DFA official told reporters.

Between 2006 and 2011, a total of 769 sailors from the Philippines were seized by pirates operating in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. About a third of the 1.5 million commercial seafarers worldwide are Filipino.

The Philippines is a member of the 70-nation Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia, which includes the United States, China, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, among other countries. Both the U.S. and the U.K. have approved the use of armed security to defend against pirates operating off the coasts of Africa.

Photo shows suspected Somali pirates under military guard. Courtesy of EU NAVFOR.