Pirates return to Gulf of Aden at largest scale in over a decade, demanding $10m ransom

Somali pirates have resumed operations at their largest scale in more than a decade.

Eight vessels have been seized by Somali pirates since late April, with two incidents occurring within a two-week span last month, according to Britain's Guardian and US broadcaster CNBC.

The French Navy's Maritime Information and Cooperation Center (MICA) said eight ships were targeted by pirates in the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Basin in June alone. The attacks, which began in late April, appear to involve multiple pirate groups operating in the area, MICA said.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) has raised the piracy threat level off the Somali coast to "substantial."

Pirates demanded $10 million for the release of the MV Eureka, which they seized on May 2, according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC). A Chinese fishing vessel, the Liaodong Yu 578, seized in January, was released in March after a ransom of $1.2 million to $1.5 million was paid.

On Aug. 17, the Cameroonian-flagged cargo ship Lutuf was seized off the coast of Ayl, in the Somali semi-autonomous region of Puntland. Four days later, armed pirates captured the Eritrean-flagged oil tanker Sibu 1 in waters off Yemen.

Matt Reisener, a senior security adviser at the Center for Maritime Strategy, told CNBC that Houthi attacks in the Red Sea had pushed vessels closer to the Somali coastline and near piracy hotspots. "High oil and gas prices have made energy carriers extremely valuable and particularly vulnerable targets," he said.

Ian Ralby, chief executive of Armada Global, said the most frequent and successful pirate attacks in nearly 15 years were "going largely unnoticed because the regional maritime security situation is so bad."

Somali pirates carried out more than 1,000 ship attacks over seven years beginning in 2005 along one of Africa's longest coastlines, taking thousands of sailors hostage and collecting an estimated $400 million in ransom. The attacks subsided only after a multinational anti-piracy naval force was deployed.

The current scale of activity, however, is assessed to fall short of the 2011 peak.