A chemical tanker traveling through the Gulf of Aden was seized by an armed group off the coast of Yemen on Friday, according to the British military.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center, known as UKMTO, reported that military authorities confirmed the ship had been boarded by “unauthorized personnel” in waters south of Yemen’s al-Mukalla province.
British maritime security company Ambrey indicated that Somali pirates are believed to be responsible for the boarding. The firm noted that the tanker did not have an armed security team on board at the time of the incident.
Ambrey also reported that a Korean naval vessel was dispatched to assist the tanker after it issued a distress call while traveling in a westbound direction.
Ship tracking service Maritime Traffic showed that the vessel — a Tanzania-flagged oil and chemical tanker named Asana — had been headed toward Bosaso, Somalia at the time of the incident.
Yemen’s coast guard in Aden had not responded to requests for comment as of the time of this report.
This latest incident is part of a troubling pattern of maritime attacks in waters near Yemen, a country devastated by years of civil war and considered one of the poorest in the world.
Somali pirates have recently expanded their activity further out into the Gulf of Aden. On July 1, suspected pirates targeted a vessel located 76 nautical miles — approximately 140 kilometers — south of the southeastern Yemeni port town of Balhaf. According to UKMTO, four armed men on a small boat caused minor damage to the ship’s bridge during that attack.
In a related development on Thursday, the European Union signed an agreement with Djibouti aimed at bolstering its naval presence in the Red Sea to counter the Iran-backed Houthi rebel group, which has repeatedly threatened to attack ships passing through the region.
The EU currently operates two maritime security fleets in the Red Sea, a critical shipping corridor that connects the Mediterranean Sea — via the Suez Canal — to the Indian and Pacific oceans.
Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 and has pitted Iran-backed Houthi rebels against a Saudi-led coalition backing the country’s government. While a fragile peace between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia had largely held in recent months, tensions have flared again this week.
