The BBC has reported that a foreign-flagged commercial ship was hijacked last week off the northern coast of Somalia.
The report identified the vessel as the 3,000DWT product tanker Honour 25, which is registered to Palau.
Neither local authorities nor EUNAVFOR Atlanta, the EU’s long-standing maritime operation in the Western Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, has acknowledged that the hijacking had occurred.
However, the BBC has quoted "multiple security officials" as saying that five armed individuals boarded the tanker while it was approximately 30 nautical miles offshore on Wednesday, April 22.
The officials said that the ship was successfully commandeered by the hijackers despite having armed guards on board and that it later sailed towards an anchorage just off the Somali towns of Hafun and Bandarbeyla.
Honour 25's 17-strong crew at the time of the hijacking included Burmese, Indian, Pakistani, Indonesian and Sri Lankan nationals while the ship's cargo consisted of 18,500 barrels of crude, the officials added.