Somali pirates killed five crew members aboard a hijacked oil tanker before a rescue force stormed the vessel, officials said this week, in the first piracy-related deaths off the Horn of Africa in more than ten years and a stark sign of how far the region’s piracy crisis has escalated in 2026.

The victims were among the crew of the MT Honour 25, a Palau-flagged tanker carrying roughly 18,500 barrels of oil that pirates seized off the Somali coast in April. Those killed included three Pakistani nationals, one Myanmar national and one Indian national; four other crew members — three Pakistanis and one Indian — were injured. The ship had been held by its captors for more than five months before Puntland’s Maritime Police Force (PMPF) launched the rescue operation on September 30, freeing the vessel and capturing 16 suspected pirates.

Puntland’s information ministry said in a statement that “before the operation begun, the pirates on board the ship killed five of the crew,” confirming that the killings took place as security forces closed in on the hijacked tanker. Mohamed Abdulkadir Salah, Puntland’s Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, said the operation showed the semi-autonomous region’s resolve to confront the resurgent threat: “With this operation by the PMPF, we have demonstrated that we have the ability to do so, and we have made it clear that we will.”

The rescue of the MT Honour 25 was one of several carried out by Puntland forces in recent weeks. The same stretch saw the PMPF free the US-sanctioned tanker Sibu 1, hijacked in August, and the MT Eureka, seized in May — together accounting for five of the six vessels Somali pirates were holding as of late August.

The violence marks a grim milestone in what analysts describe as the most serious resurgence of Somali piracy since the wave that peaked between 2008 and 2014, when hijackings disrupted major shipping lanes and cost the global economy billions of dollars in losses and ransom payments. At least 15 piracy attacks have been recorded off Somalia’s coast since April alone. Experts link the renewed surge partly to broader instability in the region, pointing to “the effects of the United States and Israel’s war on Iran” as a factor pushing oil prices higher and making tankers more attractive targets for armed groups operating from Somalia’s coastline.

For years, an international naval presence and armed guards aboard merchant vessels had kept Somali piracy largely in check, and no crew member deaths had been reported since the previous wave subsided. This week’s killings, combined with the string of hijackings since the spring, are likely to renew pressure on shipping companies and international naval coalitions to reassess security in the waters off the Horn of Africa, a corridor that remains one of the world’s busiest for oil and cargo traffic.

Sources: Al Jazeera, MarineLink