Modern pirates

For the last six months attacks of pirates on merchant vessels have increased. One of the loudest cases - capture of the Ukrainian vessel “Faina” with weapon cargo onboard. They have been captured for more than 4 months.
Why does it still happen in modern world? Could you give some pieces of advice how to avoid situations like that?

These cowardly thugs off of Somalia see OPPORTUNITY to seize these ships without OPPOSITION from them.

Add the latter and the former goes away. Plain and simple!

Arm the merchant ships & convoy them under escort if need be.

As I know some of the vessels that pass Golf of Aden are escorted by military ships. But still the attacks don’t stop. The quantity of military ships isn’t enough to provide escourt for all m/v. It’s the real problem in that region.
It seems to me that it would be better to find pirate’s bases on shore rather than seek small boats at sea.

then run the merchant ships in convoy & make the scumbag thug pirates come to you…worked in two World Wars