Somalia’s maritime police force intensified patrols in the Red Sea following a failed pirate hijacking of a ship in the Gulf of Aden earlier this week.

The commander of the maritime force in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, Abdullahi Mohamed Ahmed, told The Associated Press on Thursday that patrol s in the waters had doubled and were on a 24-hour rotation to deter pirates.

“Here now we have many challenges. We had initially dealt with the pirates and stopped their activities.

The Somali government has recently appealed for International support to deter a resurgence of piracy in the Horn of Africa.

Somalia had for years been blighted by piracy, with the peak being 2011, when the UN said more than 160 attacks were recorded off the Somali coast. The incidents have declined drastically since then.