Egypt says sailors on hijacked ship off Somalia coast are in good health
El-Gohary said the Foreign Ministry has been tracking the situation from the outset because Egyptian nationals were among those taken.
Wednesday May 13, 2026
Egyptian diplomats moved quickly after pirates seized a commercial cargo vessel with an Egyptian crew off the Somali coast, as Assistant Foreign Minister for Consular Affairs and Egyptians Abroad Ambassador Haddad El-Gohary laid out the steps taken to safeguard the sailors and push for their release.
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Speaking by phone on Al-Hayat TV, El-Gohary rejected claims that the pirates had singled out the Egyptian crew. He said such attacks are typically indiscriminate, with pirates boarding vessels before knowing who is on board or what nationalities the crew members hold.
He said the incident occurred on May 2, when an oil tanker owned by a UAE company was hijacked off Yemen’s coast near Shabwa Governorate. The pirates later steered the vessel toward Somalia’s Puntland State region, where it is now anchored in Somali territorial waters roughly 50 kilometers northeast of Mogadishu. The crew includes eight Egyptian sailors and four Indian sailors.
El-Gohary said the Foreign Ministry has been tracking the situation from the outset because Egyptian nationals were among those taken.
He added that Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty immediately instructed the Egyptian Embassy in Mogadishu to keep up direct, continuous contact with the relevant Somali authorities in order to protect the crew and secure their prompt release.
To ease the anxiety of the sailors’ families, the ministry also succeeded in arranging direct and ongoing communication between the abducted crew members and their relatives in Egypt, the ambassador said.
El-Gohary said the Egyptian sailors are in good health and are being treated well, underscoring that their safety remains the state’s foremost concern as the matter is handled.
He closed by assuring families and the public that Egypt is following the case at the highest diplomatic and security levels, while expressing hope that the crisis will be resolved soon and that the sailors will return home safely in the near future.
