ABSTRACT
Introduction The incidence of piracy and sea robbery in Southeast Asia has waxed and waned over the last ten years. From a total of 122 actual and attempted attacks in the region in 2005, the number of incidents declined to a low of 65 in 2008 before progressively increasing to a total of 149 in 2014, most of which involved ships in port or at anchor.1 Significant sub-regional changes over the last ten years (see Table 2.1) included a marked decline in attacks in Indonesia in the first years of the period followed by a resurgence in recent years; a fall in attacks in the Malacca Strait; a large number of attacks in the South China Sea between 2009 and 2011 but fewer in other years; and an apparent large increase in attacks in Malaysia in 2014. Furthermore, a very significant development in 2014 was the increased number of hijackings of small coastal tankers to steal their oil cargoes.
