An oil tanker, Sibu 1, has been freed after being hijacked by Somali pirates in August, according to the maritime police force in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region. Puntland Maritime Police Force Commander Mohamed Jama said on Friday that security forces had launched a counter-piracy operation two days earlier and were still conducting operations in the area.
“It was a counter-piracy operation that was carried out by our forces from two days ago and it’s still going on. The ship is free and the pirates are all in the hands of our forces,” Jama said. Piracy has resurged off Somalia’s coast in recent months, raising fresh concerns over maritime security in a region vital to international shipping.
Sibu 1 was the 13th vessel to be attacked this year off Somalia or in the Gulf of Aden, the strategic waterway separating Somalia from Yemen. The latest incidents have revived memories of a major wave of Somali piracy between 2008 and 2014, when attacks on commercial shipping triggered a security crisis across the western Indian Ocean, cost the global economy billions of dollars and resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom payments.