UNITED NATIONS, June 12, 2010 -- The international effort to combat piracy off the coast of Somalia continues to face important operational challenges, the chair of the UN-led Contact Group said here on Thursday.

"Pirates have become more sophisticated and more daring, especially concerning their operations away from lands. The theater has shifted."

Franciscos Verros, chairman of the Contact Group's sixth plenary, told reporters at a press conference that Somali pirates have expanded the scope of their activities from the Horn of Africa to the Western Indian Ocean.

Anti-piracy forces are unable to conduct their operations effectively in such a vast area of water due to a lack of resources. "We need more helicopters, we need more patrol," he said.

The Contact Group was established by the UN following the Security Council's adoption of a resolution aimed at fighting piracy in the region in 2008.

Meanwhile, international efforts are confronted with questions over the capture and prosecution of suspected pirates in accordance to their human rights, said Verros.

"One of the basic parameters of facing piracy is the human rights of the suspected or of the convicted pirates. It is clearly one of the working lines of the Contact Group. That said we have to deal sometimes with a kind of war and in any war accidents can happen."

The pirates are subject to laws of the country whose seas they are captured in, raising legal concerns.

"Most of the countries in the region don't have either the capacity or their judicial system is not capable of prosecuting [ the pirates] in a proper way," he said. "It is clear that human rights have to be respected."

Editor: Lin Zhi

Source: Xinhua

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