Somali pirates board first ship in 18 months

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Pirates off the coast of Somalia have launched the first successful boarding of a commercial vessel in 18 months, according to maritime authorities and shipping analysts, raising fears of a return to hijacking on a trade route that had stabilised in recent years.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations Centre said “unauthorised personnel” had boarded a vessel to the south-east of Eyl, Somalia, firing rocket-propelled grenades at the ship. The vessel is a Malta-flagged tanker en route to South Africa from India, according to Ambrey Intelligence, a maritime security company.

The attack follows two boarding attempts in the region earlier this week, including an armed assault on a commercial ship off the coast of Mogadishu. Reports of Somali pirate attacks had fallen in recent years after the establishment of international naval patrols along the coast.

A Spanish warship is en route to the tanker, but it was more than a day away at the time of the attack on Thursday, according to maritime intelligence group EOS Risk.

The 24 crew members on board have retreated to the ship’s citadel, a safe room built to protect crew from hijackers, according to EOS Risk. The pirates will probably be racing to prise a hostage out of the vessel before an international response arrives, according to Martin Kelly, EOS Risk’s head of advisory.

“The pirates will be acutely aware that a naval response has begun and they don’t want to be there without a hostage,” said Kelly. “If they can’t force entry into the citadel and take the crew hostage, they will probably leave the ship and look for another target.”

The pirates approached the tanker on a hijacked Iranian dhow, a vessel often used by pirates as a floating base to attack ships, Ambrey said.

In the years since Somali piracy began easing, international naval forces have focused their attention on the attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Red Sea.

But Kelly said this week’s assaults underscored that Somali piracy had “not gone away”. Now that recent rough weather has subsided, it is “prime time for the pirates to come out”, he said.