Somali Pirates Killed Three Pakistani Sailors Before Puntland Forces Freed Their Hijacked Tanker

Somali pirates killed three Pakistani sailors and two other crew members in the final hours of a five-month hostage ordeal, before Puntland's Maritime Police Force stormed the hijacked oil tanker MT Honour 25 and recovered it on September 29. Ten Pakistanis were among the 17 crew members aboard when the ship was seized in April, making this the deadliest known Somali piracy incident involving Pakistani nationals in more than a decade.

How the hijacking unfolded

Armed pirates boarded the Palau-flagged petroleum products tanker on April 21, roughly 30 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region. The crew of 17 included 10 Pakistanis, alongside Indian and Myanmar nationals. The pirates initially demanded $3 million for the crew's release, later lowering the figure to $1 million as negotiations dragged on for months. Surviving crew members have described severe shortages of food, medicine and clean drinking water during captivity, at one point being forced to drink contaminated water to survive.

The rescue operation

Puntland's Maritime Police Force launched a planned naval and ground operation in the Dharin-Bar area of Bandar Beyla district on September 29, more than five months after the hijacking. As the operation closed in, the pirates killed five hostages: Pakistani second officer Kashif Umar, third engineer Mahmood Ansari and oiler Rafiullah Khan, an Indian crew member identified as Tanveer, and the vessel's Myanmar chief engineer. Four other crew members were wounded, including three more Pakistanis and one Indian national. Puntland forces went on to capture 21 suspected pirates, while others fled and were still being pursued as of the announcement.

Pakistan's response so far

Islamabad's Foreign Office had not confirmed the casualties at the time Puntland announced the rescue, saying only that its mission in Djibouti — which also covers Somalia — was working to verify the reports and remained "actively engaged" in securing the crew's release. We noted last month that Pakistan's navy has stepped up operations in its own waters this year, but the Arabian Sea patrols that protect Pakistani shipping close to home offer no protection to crews working merchant routes off East Africa. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar had already flagged the case as urgent, telling the International Maritime Organisation's head last month that the situation required "urgent and effective institutional intervention" — a request made roughly a month before the pirates killed the men that intervention was meant to save.

Part of a wider resurgence

The MT Honour 25 hijacking is not an isolated case. Somali piracy has resurged sharply this year, with at least 15 attacks recorded since April alone — the highest count since 2013, when international naval patrols and armed guards had all but ended the threat that once made the Gulf of Aden one of the world's most dangerous shipping corridors. The deaths aboard the MT Honour 25 appear to be the first fatalities inflicted by Somali pirates in over a decade, a grim marker of how far that threat has rebuilt itself while global attention has been fixed on the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz.

For Pakistan, which supplies a significant share of the seafarers crewing merchant vessels across the Indian Ocean and beyond, the incident is a reminder that the risk to its citizens abroad is not confined to land borders or Gulf war zones. It is a threat that built for five months in international waters largely out of public view, until it ended in the deaths the Foreign Office had been trying, unsuccessfully, to prevent.

Build Better Pakistan's Security Desk is tracking the Foreign Office's response to the MT Honour 25 crew's deaths and the resurgence of Somali piracy.