Update:
A United Nations agency told countries to “strongly discourage” merchant ship crews from acquiring firearms to defend against piracy, despite 90 sailors being held hostage by Somali pirates.
The UN is a disgrace.
The Strait of Malacca and the waters around Singapore saw the most attacks or attempted attacks, accounting for 122 of the 171 incidents, according to the annual report. The narrow waters, large amount of traffic and the numerous islands, inlets and coastal areas that can provide concealment and escape routes for pirates contributed to the frequency of attacks in that region, according to a Security Outlines report.
Pirates Flew the Flag of Islam Over British Soil. It Took Years to Get It Down.
In 1625, the Mayor of Bristol sent an alarming report to the English
government: three Turkish pirate ships had seized the island of Lundy, in
the Bristol Channel, carried off its inhabitants to be sold as slaves, and
were now threatening to burn the nearby town of Ilfracombe unless a large
ransom was paid.
THE ISLAND
Lundy sits directly in the shipping lanes leading in and out of the
Bristol Channel, small, remote, and difficult to reach, making it an
ideal hideout. For a time, contemporary reports describe Barbary corsairs
using the island as a base, with the flag of Islam raised over its stone
castle in place of an English one.
Worth being honest here: modern historians have pushed back on just how
continuous this occupation actually was. An English naval officer at the
time, Thomas Harris of HMS Phoenix, denied the initial reports outright,
and a government inquiry turned up conflicting accounts. What isn’t in
dispute is that Barbary raiders were a real, persistent presence in the
Bristol Channel for years, using Lundy and nearby waters to strike the
English and Welsh coastline again and again.
THE RAIDS
From this base, corsairs terrorized the coasts of Cornwall, Devon, and
Dorset for years. In one especially brazen raid, Dutch convert Jan
Janszoon, known as Murat Reis the Younger, led his men into a church
mid-service on a Sunday and dragged sixty worshippers straight out of the
congregation into slavery.
WHAT’S LEFT
It took years, and eventually a dedicated English naval expedition under
Captain John Penington, to finally clear the corsairs from Lundy for
good.
Even then, reports of Barbary ships using the island resurfaced as
late as 1635