We have received the 2025 January - March piracy and armed robbery report from the International Maritime Bureau Piracy Reporting Centre (IMB PRC) together with the summary below. For more details, please refer to the attached files.

Summary

The 2025 Jan - Mar are broken down as 37 vessels boarded, four hijacked and four attempted attacks. This is an almost 35% increase on the same period of 2024, with the increase purely due to the increase in Singapore Straits incidents. Violence against and the threat to crews continues with 37 crew taken hostage, 13 crew kidnapped, two threatened and one injured.

The majority of the successful incidents were reported while vessels were anchored or steaming.

Regions where incidents reported.

Singapore Straits

Twenty-seven incidents reported (some may still be unreported), a huge spike from seven reported in the same period of 2024. While most incidents were considered low-level opportunistic crimes, guns have been reported in 14 incidents. In 2024, guns were reported in 26 incidents globally. Ten crew members were taken hostage in six separate incidents, two were threatened and one was reported injured and required medical treatment ashore. Ninety-two percent of all vessels targeted in the Singapore Straits were successfully boarded, including nine bulk carriers and tankers over 100,000 deadweight tonnage in size.

Somalia

Three hijackings of local fishing vessels and dhows with 26 crew members hostage reported. While all crew were released along with their vessels, the continued hijackings do demonstrate a continued intent of the Somali pirate to ‘lookout’ for unsuspecting vessels.

Gulf of Guinea

The number of reported incidents continues to be stable. Thirteen crew reported kidnapped in two separate incidents. The continued reduction is welcomed and the IMB PRC continues to encourage a continued and robust regional and international naval presence and the use of a common information sharing mechanism to promptly report incidents and respond with a purpose of safeguarding the crew and apprehending the perpetrators.