As naval forces tighten the noose around Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean, the idyllic Seychelles archipelago has been overrun with convicted brigands and is calling for international support, AFP reported.

The small island state, with its crystal waters and pristine beaches, lies in an area of the Indian Ocean notorious for piracy and the coast guard has been working flat out to protect ships which are coming under attack.

"The Seychelles coast guard by itself cannot make the waters safe, we need to combine forces. If we manage to bring everybody on board I think our fight against piracy will be simpler," coast guard chief Georges Adeline said. "We really need our international partners to help out," he said.

At a conference on Somalia in London last month, world leaders said they wanted to end the practice of pirates being captured and then released, but the Seychelles have been shouldering the burden of prosecuting and imprisoning them. Foreign navies which capture pirates then hand them over to the Seychelles for prosecution.

A two-decade war has wrecked Somalia, leaving it without a proper government, and the piracy problem is fuelled by the humanitarian crisis. Pirates operating from the Horn of Africa nation carried out 237 attacks in 2011, more than half the world total, according to the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre.

Half of the Somali pirates imprisoned in the Seychelles were captured by the Seychelles coast guard. There are 82 Somali pirates in the tiny Mahe prison, accounting for over 20 percent of the jail's population.

Britain has seconded prison officers to the Seychelles to provide training and support and British lawyers have been sent over to prosecute cases. The UN is also preparing a prison in Somalia so brigands can serve time back home.

The government is also setting up an anti-piracy intelligence centre to be used by Interpol, the United States and other countries to track financiers of piracy, and which will be headed up by Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency. The aim is to find out who is supplying boats, engines and weapons to the often impoverished young men filling the Seychelles prison's cells.