A new act of maritime piracy has roiled the strategically critical Gulf of Aden, with multiple Somali security sources confirming to the BBC that armed Somali pirates have seized control of a foreign-flagged oil tanker off Yemen’s coastline. This incident marks the fourth successful large vessel hijacking in just a 14-day window, marking a sharp resurgence of pirate activity that had been largely suppressed for more than a decade.
The targeted vessel, identified as the MT Eureka, was sailing under the flag of West African nation Togo when pirates overran the ship at approximately 5:00 a.m. local time, which corresponds to 03:00 British Summer Time. The hijacking unfolded in international waters close to Yemen’s port of Qana, before the hijackers steered the captured tanker toward Somali territorial waters. Three independent security officials from Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region confirmed the pirate group departed from a remote, unpatrolled stretch of coastline near the coastal town of Qandala, which sits on the Gulf of Aden shoreline. Regional maritime observers expect the MT Eureka to anchor in Somali waters within hours of the hijacking.
This hijacking comes only 10 days after the same group of pirate operatives seized another oil tanker, the Honor 25, in the same general area. The Honor 25 was carrying 18,500 barrels of crude oil en route to Somalia’s capital Mogadishu when it was overtaken.
In a separate, related incident just days prior, the United Kingdom Maritime Transportation Operation (UKMTO) issued a public warning on Friday about an attempted hijacking of a bulk carrier near Yemen’s Al-Mukala port. According to three senior security sources, the armed actors behind that attempted attack launched from a remote coastal zone near the fishing town of Caluula, located just 209 kilometers (130 miles) north of the departure point for the MT Eureka hijacking.
The spread of coordinated pirate attacks across two distinct coastal zones 200 kilometers apart confirms a worrying trend: piracy is expanding rapidly across Somalia’s 3,333-kilometer coastline, the longest continuous shoreline on the African mainland. As of Monday morning, neither Somali national nor regional authorities, nor the European Union Naval Force (EUNAVFOR) which leads official anti-piracy operations in the region, have released an official statement addressing the latest hijacking incident.
Regional security analysts trace this dramatic resurgence back to late 2023, when Houthi rebel attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden shifted international naval priorities. Once focused heavily on countering Somali piracy — a threat that had fallen to near-zero levels after a decade of coordinated patrols starting in 2011 — global maritime forces have redirected their assets to counter Houthi attacks on commercial shipping. This security gap along Somalia’s coastline has allowed armed pirate groups to reorganize, rearm, and resume large-scale hijackings for ransom.
One senior Puntland security official, speaking anonymously to the BBC, warned that the scale of the crisis is far greater than most international observers acknowledge. “The on-going crisis with the pirates is much worse than many realize. There are increasing movements of armed groups all over the coast,” the official said.