A Togo-registered commercial vessel was recently boarded by pirates off the coast of Yemen and was later diverted to the waters off northeastern Somalia, the Yemen Coast Guard has confirmed.
Officials said the target of the unauthorised boarding off Yemen's Shabwa governorate was the product tanker Eureka. The ship's AIS track has shown that it is being redirected to an area off the semi-autonomous region of Puntland.
The tanker had managed to sail through the Strait of Hormuz before the outbreak of hostilities between the United States and Iran. It initially stopped at an oil terminal in Qana in Shabwa and then headed east.
Officials said the tanker was boarded on Saturday, May 2, two days after it left Qana.
The 20-year-old Eureka is reportedly by a UAE-based company. The identity or the affiliation of the perpetrators remains unknown.
The tanker's seizure occurred after two other vessels were approached by small boats suspicious individuals off Yemen. In one of the incidents, the suspect vessel was reportedly transporting men armed with automatic weapons and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
