A merchant ship was hijacked by unknown assailants off the coast of Somalia.
The Spanish Ministry of Defense reported that the Maltese-flagged Ruen, which sailed off the coast of Somalia, was captured by unknown raiders. They expressed fears that pirates were returning to the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea waters, which have already suffered from a surge in pirate attacks on shipping.
Reuters writes about this.
A Spanish warship was dispatched on December 15th to investigate reports of a merchant ship being hijacked by unknown assailants and confirmed that Ruen “has been under pirate control since the morning of December 14th.”
The Spanish Ministry of Defense said it had no information about who exactly hijacked the ship. The attackers also did not convey any demands.
According to international maritime security services, if the hijackers are confirmed to be Somali pirates, it will be their first hijacking of a merchant ship since 2017.
The Somali coast remained an area of pirate activity from 2008–2018. The Somali authorities said in 2019 that they were able to completely cope with piracy.
Experts have suggested that Somali pirates have resumed hijacking ships following a wave of attacks by Yemen's Houthi group on trade routes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
According to a consultant for the maritime security company MAST, Somali patrols in the region are few and far between, and pirates feel completely safe on land.
“Current incidents are being treated as isolated cases. One potential cause being investigated is the Red Sea crisis, which we urge to be resolved diplomatically,” Ali Mohamed Omar, Somalia's minister of state for foreign affairs and international cooperation, told Reuters.
In January, the shipping industry ended its designation as a high-risk area in the Indian Ocean, a special section of the waterway, due to efforts to combat Somali piracy for more than a decade.
“We don't see this as a resurgence of piracy at this time. The Ruen hijacking is an isolated incident at this point and is likely being targeted by someone we don't already know,” said Corey Renslem , chief executive of British Maritime Risk. consulting and security company Dryad Global.
The London Marine Insurance Market's Joint War Committee on Monday maintained its separate high-risk listing for waters around Somalia following reports of the MV Ruen being kidnapped.
Recall that a British destroyer repelled an attack on a merchant ship in the Red Sea.
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