Unidentified attackers hijacked an oil tanker on Saturday off the coast of Yemen in the Gulf of Aden and directed it towards Somalia, the Yemeni coast guard said. 

According to the agency, the tanker EUREKA was seized off Yemen’s Shabwa province by a group who “boarded, took control of it, then steered it… in the direction of the Somali coast”.

The coast guard, which is affiliated with Yemen’s internationally recognised government, vowed to investigate the attack.

“The location of the tanker has been determined, and work is under way to monitor it and take the necessary measures in an attempt to recover it and ensure the safety of its crew,” it said, without identifying the crew’s numbers or nationality.

According to the website Marine Traffic, the EUREKA is a Togolese-flagged oil products tanker that was reported to have been in the UAE port of Fujairah in late March.

Piracy was rampant off the coast of Somalia in the 2000s, peaking in 2011 with hundreds of attacks, but was significantly reduced by international naval deployments and new tactics by commercial shipping.

But in recent weeks attacks have increased again, according to a report by the European Union naval mission deployed off the shores of the troubled east African country.

Operation Atalanta, the EU’s naval force for Somalia, monitored three attacks in late April, according to its information service, the Maritime Security Centre Indian Ocean (MSCIO). 

Since February 28, shipping in the region has also been disrupted by the US-Israeli war against Iran, but there was no immediate indication that Saturday’s hijacking was linked to the conflict.

Last month, a tanker was captured in the Gulf of Aden by a new group of pirates operating from the port town of Garacad in the Puntland state of northeastern Somalia, a local security official told AFP.

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