Five months after it was seized, the tanker MT Honour 25 has been taken back from the pirates holding it off the coast of Somalia. For five of its crew, that came too late. On Tuesday, September 29, 2026, authorities in Puntland, a semi-autonomous region in northeastern Somalia, said the sailors had been killed by their captors before security forces stormed the vessel. Several media outlets describe it as the first deadly hijacking in the region in more than a decade.
The dead are three Pakistanis, one national of Myanmar and one Indian. Four more sailors were injured, three of them Pakistani and one Indian. There were seventeen people on board when the ship was taken, most of them from Pakistan. Officials have not said exactly how the five men died.
Registered in Palau, the ship was hijacked on April 21 about thirty nautical miles off the Puntland coast. It was carrying 18,500 barrels of petroleum products, which local authorities say were bound for Somali traders. The seizure drew international concern from the start, especially in Pakistan, home to most of the crew.
The Puntland Maritime Police Force carried out the operation and arrested sixteen suspected pirates, who will face trial, according to the authorities. Other members of the gang escaped inland, and the search for them continues. In a statement, the maritime police said they remain committed to « protecting life at sea, safeguarding maritime commerce and combating piracy » in Puntland’s waters.
The rescue is one step in a wider crackdown on pirate networks. A week earlier, the same force had retaken the tanker Sibu 1, hijacked on August 20, and detained 41 suspects. Twenty-eight of them later escaped while being moved to a detention facility, which has led officials to ask whether local police helped them. The Eureka, seized on May 2, has also been recovered. Pirates held six ships at the peak of the crisis. Only one remains in their hands, the tanker Asana.
The Honour 25 toll brings back grim memories. In the late 2000s, Somali piracy disrupted shipping across the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. It faded only after international naval patrols arrived and ships began carrying armed guards. Piracy has been returning since 2023, fuelled by regional instability and by navies shifting their attention to the Red Sea, and many now fear the threat is here to stay. The killing of these five sailors shows how much more dangerous it has become.