Somalia’s pirates are back, and this time the toll is deadly

The tanker was recovered, the suspects were detained, and five people were still dead. That is the unglamorous arithmetic of the latest piracy case off Somalia, where the Palau-flagged MT Honour 25 was seized on April 21 and later retaken by Puntland security forces after a rescue operation. Somali authorities said the pirates killed five crew members before the ship was freed, a grim detail that changes the tone of the story entirely.

The Puntland Information Ministry said the vessel was carrying 18,500 barrels of oil when it was hijacked. According to its statement, the rescue mission captured 16 suspected pirates. Before the operation began, the attackers killed five crew members: three from Pakistan, one from Myanmar and one from India. Four others were injured, including three Pakistanis and one Indian.

The Puntland Maritime Police Force said on social media that the tanker was safe and under government control, and that efforts were continuing to find others involved in the hijacking. That may be true, but it also underlines a more awkward point: recovering a ship is not the same as restoring order at sea. The authorities can announce control; the sea tends to answer with another attack.

These deaths appear to be the first at the hands of Somali pirates in more than a decade. They also arrive amid a broader resurgence of piracy off Somalia’s coast, with officials saying at least 15 attacks have been reported since April. The older wave, from 2008 to 2014, disrupted one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, cost the global economy billions and produced hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom payments. Maritime crime has a long memory, even when governments do not.

The MT Honour 25 case also follows another operation last week, when Puntland maritime police freed the Sibu 1, a tanker sanctioned by the United States that Somali pirates had hijacked in August. That operation, too, ended badly in its own way: 28 of the 41 pirates arrested later escaped while being transferred to jail, and several Puntland security officials accused local police of complicity. The pattern is hard to miss. Arrests, rescues and statements have not yet translated into lasting deterrence, and the region’s shipping lanes are paying the price.

Written by Thomas Nussbaumer thomas.nussbaumer@alpineweekly.com