Suspected pirates hijack trawler off Somalia: Sri Lanka navy

The latest attack on ships in the Indian Ocean saw suspected Somali pirates boarding and taking control of a Sri Lankan fishing vessel with six crew members, the navy of Colombo said on Sunday.

“Our information is that they were captured by Somali pirates,” said Sri Lankan navy spokesman Gayan Wickramasuriya, adding that the Lorenzo Putha–4 had been seized on Saturday some 840 nautical miles southeast of the Somali capital Mogadishu.

In reaction to Israel’s battle against the Palestinian terrorist organisation Hamas, Yemen’s Houthis, who are backed by Iran, have conducted many strikes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden that are aimed at Israeli-affiliated boats.

With the first successful Somali piracy case since 2017, international naval troops have been redirected northward from the Gulf of Aden into the Red Sea, raising concerns of resurgent pirates taking advantage of the opening. This was noted in December.

“Sri Lanka has alerted the Combined Maritime Forces,” Wickramasuriya told AFP, referring to the international anti-piracy coalition.

He stated that the Sri Lankan navy was getting ready to send a ship to the region, and that the navy of nearby India had already dispatched a cruiser to conduct an investigation.

Before a steep decline in recent years, pirate assaults off the coast of Somalia peaked in 2011 with gunmen conducting attacks as far as 3,655 kilometres (2,270 miles) out into the Indian Ocean.

Somali pirates took control of the bulk freighter MV Ruen last month.

On December 16, Somali pirates took control of the Bulgarian-owned, Malta-flagged tanker 380 nautical miles east of the Yemeni island of Socotra.

The pirates, who released one injured sailor into the care of the Indian navy, took the MV Ruen and its remaining 17 crew members to Somalia’s semi-autonomous state of Puntland.

Earlier this month, Sri Lanka announced it was joining a US-led maritime taskforce in the Red Sea to protect international shipping against attacks by Houthi rebels.

However, the cash-strapped island is yet to send a vessel.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe has said that Houthi attacks had raised freight costs and were impacting Sri Lanka’s exports of garments and tea.