Somali pirates abandon hijacked UAE dhow due to dwindling supplies

An Emirati dhow hijacked by Somali pirates last month has been abandoned in the Arabian Sea after the gang failed to use the vessel to attack other ships, security officials in Somalia’s Puntland region told the AFP news agency.

An 11-member pirate group seized the Fahad-4 in late April about 10 nautical miles (19km) off the coastal town of Dhinowda in northeastern Somalia.

There was no immediate information on the fate of the crew of the lemon-laden dhow, and Somali authorities have yet to publicly comment on the status of the vessel.

Puntland security officials told AFP that the pirates had set out from an area near the port of Garacad, some 600km (373 miles) north of the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

After taking control of the dhow, the pirates “sailed Somali waters using the hijacked ship as a mothership to attempt to attack other ships”, one of the officials told AFP.

The pirates were then forced to abandon the boat on May 4 as “their supplies were running short and they weren’t able to attack other ships because of a heightened alert by ships sailing through Somali waters in recent weeks”, another official told AFP.

The incident is the latest in a series of hijackings that have renewed fears of Somali piracy after years of relative calm in one of the world’s busiest maritime corridors.

According to the Joint Maritime Information Centre (JMIC), a multinational body monitoring maritime security in the Indian Ocean, piracy threats have recently been raised to “severe” following a string of attacks targeting commercial shipping routes.

Maritime monitors say several vessels seized in recent weeks remain under pirate control, including the Bajan-flagged tanker Honour 25, hijacked off Puntland on April 21, and the Syrian-flagged Sward.

Across the Gulf of Aden, pirates took control of the Togo-flagged Eureka petrol tanker off the coast of Yemen before steering the ship towards Somali shores.

It is yet unclear which groups are behind the attacks. In the past, local fishermen and various armed groups, including those affiliated with ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda, were involved in hijackings.

Analysts speculate that the diversion of antipiracy patrols since 2023 to the Red Sea to counter attacks by the Yemen-based Houthis in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea, has created an opportunity.

More recently, naval patrols of some nations that previously helped contain the threat of piracy have been distracted or diverted towards shepherding ships trying to access the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran and the United States have blocked.

The surge in petrol prices amid the US-Israel war on Iran has also likely made fuel tankers, such as the Honour 25, more valuable to pirates, experts say.

According to the World Bank, the annual impact of piracy off Somalia on the global economy was as high as $18bn during the height of the crisis.