Piracy off Somalia
At the end of October 2026 Somali pirates hijacked the Iranian fishing vessel Azini off Puntland, and the Maritime Security Centre for the Indian Ocean warned it could become a mother ship. This film explains the fundamentals: the sea road past the Horn of Africa and the monsoon that sets the pirates' season, Somalia's state collapse in 1991 and the fishing grievance, the business of skiffs, mother ships and ransoms, the peak of 2008 to 2011, what international law says piracy is, the UN resolutions, navies, transit corridor and ship defences that drove it down after 2012, and why analysts link its return since late 2023 to the Red Sea crisis.
The pirates of the sea road
Why piracy grew off Somalia, fell, and came back.
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