Armed pirates seized control of a sanctioned oil products tanker in the Gulf of Aden on Thursday and diverted it toward the Somali coast, maritime authorities said, marking the second vessel hijacking in the region in less than a week and the clearest sign yet of a resurgent Somali piracy threat not seen in more than a decade.

The Eritrea-flagged tanker Sibu 1, formerly named Seamull, was approached by an unauthorized skiff roughly 136 nautical miles east of Al Mukalla, Yemen, according to the UK Maritime Trade Operations center. The 32,200-deadweight-ton vessel broadcast a distress call before six armed men boarded, took control of the bridge and turned the ship toward Somalia. The EU's Maritime Security Centre for the Horn of Africa confirmed the same sequence of events.

Twenty crew members were aboard, including 16 Indian nationals along with Syrian, Sudanese and Iraqi seafarers, according to Khaleej Times. India's foreign ministry said it was tracking the situation closely.

"Two foreign-flagged vessels were involved. One had 16 Indian nationals on board, while the other had six. We are in touch with authorities, all of them are reportedly safe," said Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal.

A tanker with a shadowy past

The Sibu 1 is not an ordinary cargo ship. The United States Treasury sanctioned the vessel in December 2025 for ferrying Iranian naphtha and gasoil in violation of sanctions and for calling at ports controlled by Yemen's Houthi movement, part of a broader crackdown on the network of aging tankers Iran uses to evade oil restrictions, according to gCaptain, a shipping industry news outlet. The tanker's murky ownership trail, routed through a UAE-based ship manager, has fueled speculation among analysts about who ultimately bears the loss if a ransom is paid.

The seizure comes just three days after pirates hijacked the Cameroon-flagged bulk carrier Lutuf off Somalia's Puntland coast, and follows a string of attacks that began in April after Somali piracy had been largely dormant since a multinational naval crackdown a decade ago. Al Jazeera reported that several other vessels remain in pirates' hands in the region, and that Yemen has since announced a new National Maritime Security Committee to try to secure its shipping lanes.

Piracy off Somalia peaked between 2005 and 2012, when gangs extracted an estimated $400 million in ransoms from shipowners before international navies, armed guards and onboard citadels drove the threat into dormancy. Analysts say the renewed attacks reflect thinning naval patrols in the Gulf of Aden, many of which have been diverted to counter Houthi missile and drone strikes on shipping further north in the Red Sea.

UKMTO has urged vessels transiting the corridor to stay at maximum distance from the Somali and Yemeni coastlines, maintain armed security details where possible, and report any suspicious approach immediately. No group has yet claimed responsibility for either hijacking, and the fate of the Sibu 1's crew remains the immediate concern for naval forces and shipping companies tracking the vessel's course toward the Somali coast.