Piracy off the coast of Somalia has reached its highest level in a decade in 2026. According to an analysis by Danish Shipping based on International Maritime Bureau data, thirteen incidents were recorded between January and July, compared with eight for the whole of 2024 and just five in 2025. A further attack on a cargo vessel, reported in the week of August 17, has not yet been included in that count.
This resurgence remains far below the scale of the crisis at the turn of the 2010s, when more than two hundred attacks a year were recorded off Somalia. It nonetheless marks a clear shift after several years of relative calm, largely secured through international naval operations deployed in the region.
Several factors are converging to explain this comeback. The conflict between the United States and Iran has diverted part of the international naval presence toward the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, reducing the deterrent presence off the Horn of Africa. At the same time, the partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz is pushing many shipowners to route their vessels around Africa rather than through shorter passages, sending them directly through waters that have once again become dangerous.
Somalia’s domestic situation is also playing a decisive role. US humanitarian aid, which still stood at $467 million in 2024, fell to $70 million in 2025 and to just $3 million in the first three months of 2026. That sharp drop has stripped many coastal communities of economic alternatives, in a country also gripped by a constitutional crisis, marked by the postponement of general elections without a legal framework and by rising tensions between the federal government and some regional states.
Since April, pirate groups have carried out a string of hijackings for ransom. The Eritrea-flagged tanker Sibu 1 and the Cameroon-flagged cargo ship Lutuf are among the vessels seized in recent weeks, while other ships remain held off the Somali coast. Ransom demands have at times reached several million dollars, a figure reminiscent of the darkest years of Somali piracy, when its annual cost to the global economy reached as much as $18 billion, according to the World Bank.
In response to this renewed threat, states party to the Djibouti Code of Conduct and its Jeddah Amendment have agreed to set up a combined task force covering the Western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. A working-group workshop is due to take place in Mombasa in early September to define its operational framework, though no launch date has yet been set. This regional mechanism is separate from national deployments, such as China’s 49th escort mission, which departed on August 12, since China is not a party to the Djibouti agreement.
For now, international maritime authorities continue to urge vessels to follow best management practices for security, noting that ships which do so remain significantly less exposed to attack.