Five Crew Members Reportedly Killed Aboard Hijacked Somali Tanker

Five crew members were reportedly killed aboard the Palau-flagged oil tanker MT Honour 25 before a rescue mission freed the vessel off Somalia, according to Somali authorities and the Information Ministry of Puntland.

The tanker was seized by pirates on April 21 while carrying 18,500 barrels of oil. Puntland officials said a rescue operation later freed the ship and resulted in the capture of 16 suspected pirates.

Crew casualties reported

The Information Ministry of Puntland said the five dead crew members included three people from Pakistan, one from Myanmar and one from India.

Four other crew members were injured, including three Pakistanis and one Indian, the ministry said. The reported killings and injuries have been attributed to Somali and Puntland authorities and were not independently verified in the source material.

“Before the operation began, the pirates on board the ship killed five of the crew,” the ministry said in a statement.

The exact date of the killings and the rescue operation was not specified.

Vessel placed under government control

The Puntland Maritime Police Force said the tanker was safe and under government control after the operation. The force also said efforts were continuing to locate others involved in the hijacking.

The reported deaths appear to be the first such killings by Somali pirates in more than a decade, although that assessment was not presented as definitive.

Reported rise in piracy

Officials have reported at least 15 attacks off Somalia since April, amid concerns about a resurgence in piracy in the region.

The rescue of the MT Honour 25 followed an operation the previous week involving the Sibu 1, a tanker sanctioned by the United States that Somali pirates had hijacked in August. Maritime police freed that vessel, while 41 pirates were arrested. Twenty-eight later escaped while being transferred to jail, according to the supplied background information. Several Puntland security officials accused local police of complicity in the escape.

A previous wave of piracy between 2008 and 2014 disrupted one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, caused billions of dollars in economic losses and led to hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom payments.

Experts have attributed part of the latest resurgence to the effects of the United States and Israel’s war on Iran.