Angela Normino
India’s navy has rescued 19 Pakistani nationals after Somali pirates captured their fishing vessel off the coast of Somalia.
Eleven Somali pirates had boarded the Iranian-flagged fishing vessel Al Naeemi and taken all the crew members hostage, the navy said.
The responding navy officers “compelled the safe release of the crew and the vessel” after India’s INS Sumitra navy patrol ship intercepted the hijacked fishing vessel, India’s navy said on Tuesday.
The rescue of the Pakistanis was the second anti-piracy operation carried out by the INS Sumitra within 36 hours. They had hours earlier rescued 17 people that had been taken hostage by Somali pirates on another Iranian-flagged fishing vessel in the Gulf of Aden.
A navy statement said that the ship had responded to a distress message on 28 January and intercepted an Iranian-flagged vessel. Naval officers then “coerce[d] the pirates for safe release of crew along with the boat”, according to a post on X (formerly Twitter).
Once the 17 crew members were released, the ship was sanitised and allowed to continue its journey. The statement did not mention the status of the pirates.
On Tuesday, the navy said INS Sumitra was again “pressed into action to locate and intercept another Iranian-flagged fishing vessel Al Naeemi”.
Navy personnel boarded the vessel to sanitise the vessel and check on the well-being of the crew, it added.
The status of the pirates was not mentioned again, but a photo posted on X showed armed Navy personnel guarding men who had their hands tied behind their backs.
On Saturday, defence forces from the Seychelles had rescued six Sri Lankan fishermen after their vessel was hijacked.
According to a Bloomberg report, the increase in piracy off Somalia’s coast is linked to the disruption in maritime security due to a series of attacks on ships in the Red Sea by the Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group.
On 26 January, the Indian Navy said it deployed its warship INS Visakhapatnam in the Gulf of Aden in response to a distress call from Marlin Luanda, a tanker with links to the UK that was on fire for several hours after being hit by a missile fired by the Houthis. French and US naval ships also provided assistance to the vessel.
And earlier in January, Indian navy commandos had rescued 21 crew members from a Liberian-flagged ship which was attacked by pirates off the Somalian coast.
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