Officials say pirates have become emboldened as naval forces patrolling the Red Sea area are distracted by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and civilian maritime routes diverted.

Yemen’s Coast Guard has said that it is attempting to recover an oil tanker that was hijacked off the coast and is now heading towards Somalia.

The “M/T Eureka” was seized off Yemen’s southeastern Shabwa province as armed assailants boarded and took control of the vessel, the coastguard said in a statement on Saturday. The hijackers then steered the tanker to the Gulf of Aden towards the Somali coast.

The attack is at least the fourth to take place near Somalia in recent weeks, with pirate activity in the area on the rise in an apparent reaction to the war in Iran. Officials say pirates have become emboldened as naval forces patrolling the Red Sea area are distracted by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and civilian maritime routes diverted.

The coastguard said that it was working with international partners and relevant authorities in the Gulf of Aden to recover the tanker and ensure the safety of the crew, whose fate remains unknown.

It cautioned, however, that its capabilities are limited due to Yemen’s dire economic situation.

‘Window of opportunity’

Ship hijackings off the Somali coast have become more frequent since the US and Israel began their war on Iran in February.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) has raised the piracy threat level along the Somali coast to “substantial” and warned vessels to “transit with caution”.

The European Union’s naval forces patrolling the region said that the Iran war has given piracy groups a “window of opportunity”.

A tanker carrying about 18,000 barrels of oil was hijacked near the Somali coast on April 21. Within the following five days, two more vessels were seized.

Somalia’s coastline was the world’s worst region for piracy from the early to mid-2000s. The World Bank estimated that at its peak, piracy was costing the global economy as much as $18bn a year.

More than 200 attacks were recorded in 2011 alone, according to EU naval force data.

An international naval coalition eventually suppressed the threat, reducing attacks to nearly zero by 2014.

However, incidents began to rise again in 2023, which some analysts attribute to anti-piracy patrols being redirected to the Red Sea to counter threats from Houthi forces targeting ships in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. The Houthis said their attacks were a response to the persecution of Palestinians.