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Merchant ship hijacked off Yemen now held by Somali pirates, residents say
A Tanzanian-flagged tanker, the MT Astana, hijacked in the Gulf of Aden last week is now held by Somali pirates, according to residents and officials. The ship had 20 crew members, including eight Germans and 10 Filipinos, and was boarded 65 nautical miles off Yemen.
A merchant ship hijacked in the Gulf of Aden last week is now being held by Somali pirates, according to two residents of Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region. The tanker, identified as the MT Astana (also referred to as the MT Asana), was sailing under a Tanzanian flag and was en route to the port of Bosaso in Puntland when it was boarded by seven gunmen, as reported by the BBC and the Jerusalem Post, citing Puntland security officials and residents.
Coverage comparison
Reporting on the incident differs slightly in details. The BBC, citing three Puntland security officials, identified the hijacked vessel as the MT Astana, a tanker seized on Friday by seven gunmen who set off from a remote area near the Puntland port town of Garacad. The Jerusalem Post, drawing on two Puntland residents and the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), refers to the ship as the MT Asana and says it was hijacked last week before being maneuvered into Somali waters. UKMTO classified the incident as a hijack after a vessel was boarded by unauthorized personnel in the Gulf of Aden.
Key claims
Hijacking details: The MT Astana was boarded 65 nautical miles off Yemen, as reported by the BBC. Seven gunmen were involved, according to Puntland security officials cited by the BBC.
Crew composition: There were 20 crew members on board, including eight from Germany and 10 from the Philippines, a resident who described himself as a former pirate told Reuters, as carried by the Jerusalem Post.
Pirate activity: Pirates were seen transporting food to the hijacked ship, according to a resident of Caluula in Puntland, reported by the Jerusalem Post. The same report notes a recent increase in pirate activity in the area after a lull between 2008 and 2018.
Regional security: The Gulf of Aden is more lightly protected than the Indian Ocean, which is heavily patrolled by the European Union Naval Force, according to Puntland officials cited by the BBC. This may explain why pirates have shifted their operations to the Gulf of Aden, the officials said.
Official response: Germany's Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the abduction of German nationals overseas as a matter of principle, as reported by the Jerusalem Post.
Perspectives
Puntland officials: Three security officials told the BBC that the tanker was hijacked by seven gunmen who set off from a remote area near Garacad. They noted that the Gulf of Aden's lighter protection compared to the Indian Ocean may have made it a target for pirates.
Puntland residents: Two residents, one a former pirate, told Reuters that the ship is now held by Somali pirates. The former pirate said there were 20 crew members aboard, including eight Germans and 10 Filipinos. Another resident saw pirates transporting food to the vessel, as reported by the Jerusalem Post.
UKMTO: The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations confirmed the hijacking, stating that a vessel boarded by unauthorized personnel in the Gulf of Aden had been maneuvered into Somali waters, according to the Jerusalem Post.
How each outlet told it
BBC — World
Framing: Piracy incident in Gulf of Aden — Informative
Each row is one claim, attributed to the outlet whose wording states it most clearly. Confidence rates how directly the source text states the claim — explicit and unhedged rates high; hedged, pieced-together, or internally inconsistent statements rate lower. It does not measure whether the claim is true. Status counts the distinct outlets we found asserting it — so a single-source claim can still show high confidence, and a multi-source claim can show medium. Every one of those outlets is named beside the status, so you can check the count against the list. For claims extracted before we began storing that list, the row says so: it names the outlet the claim is quoted from and states that we have not recorded which outlets backed it. Outlets wrote at different times, so a figure that evolves — a casualty count, for example — can legitimately differ between rows; check the "as of" time next to each claim's source.
Claim
Confidence
Status
ClaimThe MT Astana tanker was hijacked by seven gunmen in the Gulf of Aden.