Somali piracy surges, four suspected attacks reported off coast in a week

A tanker off Mareeyo, a cargo ship near Garacad and armed skiffs south of Eyl have pushed Somali piracy back into the center of shipping risk calculations. In six days, UK Maritime Trade Operations logged at least four suspected incidents off Somalia, a burst of activity that could raise insurance costs, force longer routes and ripple through global freight schedules.

UKMTO said on 21 April that a tanker had been hijacked about 45 nautical miles northeast of Mareeyo, Somalia. Two days later, a cargo vessel 83 nautical miles south of Eyl was approached by two small fishing vessels with armed people on board. Warning shots were fired, the suspicious craft returned fire, then moved away, and all crew were safe and accounted for. On 26 April, UKMTO reported another hijack, this time involving a cargo vessel about 6 nautical miles northeast of Garacad, where unauthorized persons took control and redirected the ship into Somali territorial waters.

A separate report on 21 April described shots fired and a possible boarding attempt against a Stolt Tankers product tanker about 24 nautical miles southeast of Xaafuun, adding to the sense that the threat has spread along the northern Somali coast. Together, the incidents point to a pattern that looks less like isolated criminality and more like a resurgent piracy network probing for weak points at sea.

That shift matters because maritime security officials had only recently been treating the area as manageable rather than acute. The Maritime Security Centre Indian Ocean had assessed the threat around Somalia as low to moderate before the latest spike, and Operation Atalanta has already been tracking and isolating hijacked dhows to stop them being used again. In March, the force reported locating an Iranian-flagged dhow seized by suspected Somali pirates, underscoring how mobile the threat had become.

The new activity also fits a wider rise in maritime alerts. UKMTO said in an advisory on 23 April that it had received 36 incident reports since 28 February across the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman, up from 33 reports in a 20 April update. In that environment, an attack off Somalia can quickly translate into higher war-risk premiums, tighter routing decisions and delays for cargoes that may have to be diverted around Africa rather than risk the Gulf of Aden.

The UK government still describes the Gulf of Aden and waters off Somalia as high-risk piracy areas and urges ship operators to take enhanced security precautions. After a lull that many had hoped was lasting, the corridor is once again being treated as vulnerable, and the cost of that change will be felt well beyond Somalia’s coast.