Cameroon: New maritime security law to tackle piracy - SAFETY4SEA - Safety4Sea

Six months aft the UN Security Council adopted a substance compelling Gulf of Guinea countries to criminalize piracy and equipped robbery astatine sea, Cameroon adopted a instrumentality to tackle piracy and amended information of maritime navigation wrong its waters.

President Paul Biya signed the instrumentality connected December 27, making Cameroon the 2nd state successful the portion to motorboat specified a ineligible model connected suppression of piracy and maritime offenses. The archetypal 1 was Nigeria, which adopted a akin instrumentality backmost successful 2019.

The instrumentality is considered arsenic a captious milestone successful the Gulf of Guinea’s maritime security, arsenic Cameroon’s nationalist maritime authorities are empowered to punish immoderate amerciable activities threatening harmless navigation wrong its territorial waters.

The instrumentality takes a harsh stance to offenses regarding piracy, coercion onboard ships, contamination of waterways and financing acts of piracy. For each these offenses, the condemnation is beingness imprisonment if a condemnation is successful. Furthermore, fines scope from $16,000 to $4 cardinal depending connected the crime.

A bid of piracy incidents since 2019 prompted the authorities to instrumentality action. The superior extremity was to warrant information of ships astatine the Doula anchorage, utilizing section equipped guards onboard vessels. The ineligible model present successful spot should enactment arsenic a credible deterrent to pirate gangs.