For Somali pirate victims, abuse and long captivity

* Attacks, hostage abuse traumatise crews

* Pirates strike deeper, demand higher ransoms

By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent

LONDON, June 6 (Reuters) - Increasingly ferocious attacks by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean are inflicting a rising human cost with thousands of seafarers suffering physical injury and emotional trauma, a report said on Monday.

Defying international patrols, the pirates have deepened their forays in the strategic waterway, prompting some shipping operators to stay away and others to hire armed guards.

Though relatively few of those who have fallen prey to the pirates have been killed, their captivity was often brutal and protracted. "Thousands of people are subjected to gunfire, confinement, beatings, and in some cases torture in the course of doing their jobs," said the report, published by a piracy working group including members of the shipping industry and funded by the U.S.-based One Earth Future Foundation.

Assessing the scale of the problem was difficult, the report said, as the vast majority of hostages come from developing countries that do not draw broad international attention. Just 6 percent of them have been from OECD countries.

But a survey of various official and media sources showed that at least 4,185 seafarers had faced a direct attack by pirates with firearms in the Indian Ocean or Gulf of Aden.