Pirates firing machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades have boarded a tanker off the coast of Somalia.<\/p>\n
Greek shipping company Latsco Marine Management confirmed its vessel, Hellas Aphrodite, had been attacked in the early hours of Thursday.<\/p>\n
The tanker, which was carrying fuel, was en route from India to South Africa when a “security incident” took place, the firm said.<\/p>\n
“All 24 crew are safe and accounted for and we remain in close contact with them,” it added in a statement.<\/p>\n
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency issued an alert to warn ships in the area.<\/p>\n
It located the vessel 560 nautical miles southeast of Eyl, Somalia<\/a>, in the Indian Ocean. Eyl became famous in the mid-2000s as the centre of a wave of piracy.<\/p>\n “The Master of a vessel has reported being approached by one small craft on its stern. The small craft fired small arms and RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] towards the vessel,” UKMTO said in a statement.<\/p>\n Datawrapper<\/p>\n This content is provided by Datawrapper, which may be using cookies and other technologies. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Datawrapper cookies. Enable Cookies<\/a> EU forces move in on tanker<\/p>\n The European Union’s Operation Atalanta, a counter-piracy mission around the Horn of Africa, said one of its assets was “close to the incident” and “ready to take the appropriate actions”.<\/p>\n That EU force has responded to other recent pirate attacks in the area and had issued a recent alert that a pirate group was operating off Somalia and assaults were “almost certain” to happen.<\/p>\n Private security firm Ambrey has claimed that Somali pirates were operating from an Iranian fishing boat they had seized and had opened fire on the tanker.<\/p>\n The crew members took shelter in the ship’s “citadel”, or fortified safe room, and remain there, an official from maritime security company Diaplous said.<\/p>\n Read more from Sky News: Pirate gangs resume attacks<\/p>\n Thursday’s attack comes after another vessel, the Cayman Islands-flagged Stolt Sagaland, found itself targeted in a suspected pirate attack that included both its armed security force and the attackers shooting at each other, the EU force said.<\/p>\n The vessel’s operator Stolt-Nielsen confirmed there was an attempted attack, early on 3 November, which was unsuccessful.<\/p>\n Somali pirate gangs have been relatively inactive in recent years. In May 2024, suspected pirates boarded the Liberian-flagged vessel Basilisk, EU naval forces later rescued the 17 crew members.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the last hijacking took place in December 2023, when the Maltese-flagged Ruen was taken by assailants to the Somali coast before Indian naval forces freed the crew and arrested the attackers.<\/p>\n
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