Oil tanker hijacking stokes fears of new disruption in Gulf region

Pirates from Somalia hijacked an oil tanker off the coast of Yemen on May 2 and have diverted it to Somalia’s waters, the authorities in Somalia said on May 3, the third such incident in recent weeks.

The hijacking is an embarrassment for the government in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and suggests a resurgence of piracy at a time when the Red Sea, which borders western Yemen, has become an even more critical route for global shipping, given the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz by the war in Iran.

Yemen’s coast guard said that unidentified people had boarded the ship, the Togo-flagged Eureka, on May 2 and directed it through the Yemeni part of the Gulf of Aden toward Somalia’s coast. Efforts to monitor and recover the vessel were under way, it added.

The vessel was being held for ransom off the coast of Puntland, according to Galmudug state director general of the ministry of ports Abshir Hashi Ali, a region of Somalia’s federal republic that borders Puntland.

Given the proximity of the hijacking to Yemen, the attack has heightened concerns in both governments about collaboration between Somali pirates and the Houthis, a Yemeni rebel group backed by Iran, said regional analyst Mohammed Al-Basha briefed on the seizure by the Yemeni and Somali authorities.

An official in the semiautonomous Puntland region, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss sensitive intelligence, said that some Yemenis were also suspected in the attack and that the government was investigating whether they had ties to armed groups, including the Houthis.

The Houthis and Somali pirates have cultivated an alliance over the years, with the rebels at times providing technology and military backup. Analysts say the war could give them more reason to work together as the high price of fuel presents an opportunity to profit.

The director general of ports in Puntland, Hashi, said that collaboration between the pirates and the Houthis was “a possibility”.

Somali piracy has been a major problem in the Red Sea in recent decades, reaching a peak around 2010 when hundreds of vessels were seized, costing shipping companies and insurers billions of dollars, in part through ransom fees.

The numbers began to decline because of international naval coalitions involving NATO and the European Union and because ships began passing farther from Somalia’s coast and adopting measures such as water cannons to deter pirates.

In recent years, missiles and drones fired by the Houthis at Red Sea shipping in support of Hamas’ war against Israel in the Gaza Strip have posed a bigger threat to commercial vessels than piracy. The Houthis paused their attacks on vessels late in 2025 after a ceasefire in Gaza.

Analysts in Somalia said that internal Somali dynamics provided a better explanation than international politics for why armed gangs from the impoverished coast are taking to the seas again in small boats.

Coastal communities have long complained that an influx of Chinese and Spanish trawlers creates so much competition that fishing is no longer lucrative. At the same time, gangs have started to take advantage of a decline in the policing of international waters near the Somali coast since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, said Somali security analyst Samira Gaid.

“It’s a perfect opportunity for piracy to spike,” she said.

Because the gangs can earn tens of millions of dollars through ransoms, money that then flows through the coastal economy, piracy enjoys significant local political support even though it is illegal, she said.

For President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia, the armed gangs undercut his claim that his government is restoring sovereignty. Somalia has received naval support from Turkey, one of the government’s most important allies, but it remains unable to police its waters effectively.

The government is also battling an insurgency by the terrorist group al-Shabab, but the group is not believed to be involved in the recent ship hijackings, analysts and three Somalia government security officials said on May 3.

Since April, Somali pirates have hijacked at least three vessels off the country’s coast. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre, run by the British navy, recently raised the threat level around that coast and urged ships to proceed with caution.

Data from VesselFinder, a maritime tracking database, shows that the Eureka last docked in the United Arab Emirates. After sailing close to Yemen’s coastline, the data shows, the ship made a sharp turn toward Somalia and was last tracked roughly halfway between the two countries.

The ship’s latest location and the condition of the crew were unclear. Royal Shipping Lines, which owns the tanker according to public shipping data, did not respond to a request for comment. NYTIMES