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Six armed men boarded the tanker Seamull in the Gulf of Aden on August 20 and turned the vessel toward Somalia, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre. The ship, also listed as SIBU 1, broadcast a distress call about 136 nautical miles east of Yemen's Al Mukalla after an unauthorized vessel closed on it.
UKMTO said the boarders had taken control and were redirecting the tanker to Somalia. The monitor gave no detail on the condition of the crew and did not name the group responsible. "Vessels are advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity to UKMTO," the centre said in its statement.
The Seamull already carried a sanctions history. The United States designated it in December as part of Iran's shadow fleet. Treasury named it one of four vessels operated by UAE-based Qatrat Alnada Almasi Ship Management that moved Iranian naphtha and gasoil and made port calls at Houthi-controlled terminals in Yemen.
Five other cargo ships were already being held when the Seamull was taken. They include a tanker seized in July about 26 nautical miles off Yemen's Hadramout province. Piracy off Somalia had been close to dormant since 2013. Between 2005 and 2012, Somali pirates were blamed for more than 1,000 attacks and roughly $400m in ransom payments.
The current wave started in April. NPR reported in May that the tankers Honour 25 and Eureka and the cargo ship Sward were all taken inside about a week. Daniel Mueller of the maritime intelligence agency Ambrey said all three then sat stationary within two miles of the Somali coast, a pattern he linked to ransom negotiations.
John Walker, a former Royal Navy counterpiracy officer now with EOS Risk Group, told NPR the tally this year had reached up to a dozen attacks. He put the 2011 peak at 237 attacks, with more than 30 vessels held hostage at once. Many of the shipboard measures introduced back then, including razor wire, citadels and embarked security teams, were dropped as the threat faded.
Naval coverage has also thinned. Warships that once patrolled the Somali basin are committed to the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, and merchant traffic avoiding those routes now runs closer to the Somali coast. Yemen announced a National Maritime Security Committee on August 20 to protect navigation in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. The Gulf of Aden feeds the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, which carries between 12 and 15 percent of global trade by value each year.
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