Saber Eid and Rania AbushamalaSunday July 19, 2026
A ship sailing through the Gulf of Aden has been hijacked and redirected toward Somali waters, British maritime authorities said, in the latest sign of renewed piracy risks along one of the world’s key shipping routes.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said Saturday that it had received a report the previous day of an incident about 65 nautical miles (120 kilometers, 75 miles) south of Al Mukalla, the Hadramout provincial capital in Yemen.
Unidentified people boarded the vessel while it was heading east, the UKMTO said.
The vessel was subsequently ordered toward Somali territorial waters, leading the agency to change its classification of the episode to a “Hijack.”
“Authorities are investigating” the incident, it said.
Yemen’s Coast Guard said Friday it was following the seizure of the Asana oil tanker more than 26 nautical miles off Hadramout’s coast.
According to the Coast Guard, a group of Somali pirates carried out the attack on the tanker.
Authorities did not identify the vessel’s owner, while no group has publicly claimed responsibility for the seizure.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said on May 11 that an oil tanker carrying eight Egyptian sailors had been hijacked near Somalia’s coast.
That incident followed by days the reported hijacking of another vessel carrying 12 Egyptian and Indian sailors, according to Yemeni authorities.
Piracy off Somalia was widespread between 2008 and 2018, then declined for several years. Attacks began rising again in late 2023 as regional security tensions intensified.
Separately, Yemen’s Houthi group said on April 12 it would step up military operations if US-Israeli attacks on Iran resumed.
