Surge in piracy, armed robbery in Malacca and S'pore straits

But almost all of the 80 incidents in first half of 2025 deemed to be of lower severity

- Samuel Devaraj

The number of piracy and armed robbery cases in the straits of Malacca and Singapore in the first half of 2025 was four times that for the same period in the previous year.

There were 80 such incidents reported between January and June 2025 to the anti-piracy group, ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre (ISC).

There were 21 incidents reported in the same period in 2024, it said in a press release on July 10.

In Asia as a whole, there was an 83 per cent rise in such incidents, with 95 reported between January and June 2025, compared with 52 reported in 2024.

ReCAAP, or the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia, entered into force in 2006.

While the numbers in Asia have gone up, the incidents are of lower severity than those that occur in other parts of the world, said ReCAAP ISC's executive director Vijay D. Chafekar at a media briefing in York Hotel Singapore on July 10.

He noted that there has not been a serious piracy case in the high seas in Asia in the last four to five years, and that other parts of the world, like the Gulf of Guinea, experience crimes like the kidnapping of crew for ransom.