A tanker hijacking in the Gulf of Aden has renewed concern about piracy off Yemen, after officials said suspected Somali gunmen boarded the vessel as it sailed east. The Gulf of Aden tanker hijacking was reported by the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre and Somali security officials, who said other ships were warned to move with caution.
According to the UKMTO, a vessel was boarded by unauthorized personnel. Officials in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region said the attackers were Somali. Three Puntland security officials separately told the BBC that the ship was the MT Asana, a tanker sailing under a Tanzanian flag and bound for Bosaso in Puntland when it was taken 65 nautical miles off the coast of Yemen.
The same officials said seven gunmen carried out the seizure after leaving a remote area near the Puntland port town of Garacad and heading into the Gulf of Aden. The tanker hijacking is the second seizure of a vessel off Yemen since May, when the MT Eureka was captured near the port of Qana. Two other ships were also boarded by pirates in the Indian Ocean in April, although those attacks did not succeed.
