DURING January, seven incidents of armed robbery against ships were reported in Asia. No piracy incident was reported.
ReCAAP ISC is concerned with the continued occurrence of incidents on board ships while underway in the Singapore Strait.
In January, three incidents were reported in the eastbound lane of the Traffic Separation Scheme in the Singapore Strait.
The incidents occurred in close proximity to each other, and in particular, two incidents occurred within an interval of four hours
ReCAAP ISC issued an Incident Alert on 29 January to alert the shipping community of the situation in the Singapore Strait.
There was no report of abduction of crew in the Sulu-Celebes Seas and waters off Eastern Sabah in the month of January.
However, the risk of the abduction of crew remains high as demonstrated by the abduction of crew incident on 17 Jan 2020 (with four crew still held in captivity), information of planned kidnapping (as reported in ReCAAP ISC’s Warning issued on 7 July 2020), and the military operation on 3 Nov 2020 by the Philippines authorities in preventing a kidnap-for-ransom incident.
