CAMP LEMONNIER, Djibouti — After years of relative calm, piracy is on the rise again off the coast of Somalia, US officials here said Sunday.

General Thomas Waldhauser, the Marine officer in charge of the US Africa Command, said there have been ‘‘five or six’’ piracy incidents in the region in two months.

Waldhauser, speaking at a news conference here with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, attributed the spike in attacks to the widespread drought and famine gripping the region. He said the ships that the pirates were targeting have been small in size and carried goods such as food and oil.

‘‘I wouldn’t say it’s a trend, but we’ll watch it,’’ he said.

After a coordinated international response to piracy in 2010 and 2011, including additional patrols of US and European naval ships in the waters around Somalia, the number of pirate attacks in the past five years has been negligible.

That has changed in recent months.

‘‘It has certainly increased,’’ said Navy Captain Richard Rodriguez, chief of staff of the US task force in the Horn of Africa.

Rodriguez told reporters that the US task force is in a monitoring role, while local authorities and units led by the European Union take the lead in assessing the resurgent threat.

Washington Post