Look at a map. If you're trying to go through the Suez Canal, you can't avoid going near Somalia. It's one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. The alternative is going around the Cape of Good Hope, and enduring the roaring forties in a sailboat, on a much longer (and more expensive) trip doesn't seem like a whole lot of fun.
Thanks for that info. I should have been able to figure it out myself, but the little grey cells fail me sometimes...
The attack in the article is not yet up on the IMDB Live Piracy Map: http://www.icc-ccs.org/extra/display.php?yr=2008. but it seems to me that with the quantity of traffic in that area, it would be sensible to provide IR night and day satellite monitoring of all vessels in the area. Most of the attacks shown were not coastal, but mid-channel.
Also, mercenary armament packs and crews could be made available to ships making the passage, transferring from incoming to outgoing vessels in the danger zone, in a revolving door tactic. It wouldn’t take many pirate vessel sinkings to discourage attacks. What would be the cost compared to the loss of a multi-million dollar vessel or ransom money or crew lives? Insurers should be vetting this situation a bit harder. The maritime agencies of the shipper nations could be putting their heads together more effectively.