Small tanker hijacked by Somali pirates

The bunkering tanker Aris 13 was hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia Monday.    Aris 13, a small 1,800 dwt bunkering oil tanker with eight crew members from Sri Lanka, was hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia on Monday in the first attack by Somali pirates since 2012, according to several media reports.
   Reuters said data from its systems showed the ship made a sharp turn just after it passed the Horn of Africa on its voyage from Djibouti to Mogadishu.
   The news agency said it was told by John Steed of the organization “Oceans Beyond Piracy,” the Aris 13 sent a distress call on Monday, turned off its tracking system, and altered course for the Somali port town of Alula.
   “The ship reported it was being followed by two skiffs yesterday afternoon. Then it disappeared,” Steed told Reuters.
   He said aircraft from regional naval force EU Navfor were flying overhead to track the ship.
   The International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB) Piracy Reporting Center (PRC) said that in 2016, there were just two piracy incidents off Somalia. That’s a big change from 2011 when Somali pirates launched 237 attacks and held hundreds of hostages.
   In regards to the 2016 piracy incidents, Pottengal Mukundan, director of IMB, whose PRC has monitored world piracy since 1991, said, “Pirates attempted to attack a container vessel in the Gulf of Aden in May, and fired on a product tanker in the Somali basin some 300 nautical miles from shore in October. For IMB, this latest incident demonstrates that the capacity and intent to attack merchant shipping still exists off Somalia.”