A former hostage held for more than four years by Somali pirates believes that attack levels in the Indian Ocean will rise again if ship-owners and security forces reduce their levels of protection.
Engineer Mohammed Bisthamy, 60, was one of 11 crew on the Malaysian-owned cargo vessel MV Albedo, which was hijacked 1,500 kilometres off Somalia in November 2010. The crew finally escaped in June this year.
Although the numbers of attacks off the Horn of Africa have declined considerably this year, Bisthgamy said that pirates are waiting to step up their activities again as soon as soon as alert