Textbook of Maritime Medicine

Abstract

In this article, the author analyzes piracy at sea, trying to provide a general up-to-date vision of the problem which threatens the safety on the sailing of ships nowadays in different parts of the world.

The work deliberately avoids showing statistical data that may be easily looked up especially in the OMI and the IMB reports, to concentrate on the relevant question of the lack of international standardization of the concept itself; then he presents the different modus operandi of pirates according to the places where they operate. He also provides some episodes he considers clarifying and finally he examines the existing factors behind these punishable acts and presents some proposals considered necessary in order to tackle the problem of the Somalia-Horn of Africa region, the pronest area to piracy attacks nowadays, with a view to its possible eradication.