Pirates seize oil tanker off coast of Somalia

8 Sri Lankans held on board; leader may ask U.S. help.

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA — Pirates off the coast of Somalia have seized an oil tanker with eight Sri Lankans on board, in what was believed to be the first hijacking of a large commercial vessel in the region since 2012, officials said Tuesday.

The merchant ship was intercepted while en route to Mogadishu, the Somali capital, from Djibouti, and was diverted toward Alula, a port in the semiautonomous Puntland region in northeastern Somalia, Ali Shire Mohamud Osman, the district commissioner in Alula, said in a telephone interview.

The ship’s crew sent a distress signal Monday evening, saying the vessel was being approached by high-speed boats.

Abdikamil Moalin Shukri, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior and Security, said the agency was awaiting more details.

The chairman of Puntland’s anti-piracy operation, Abdirisak Mohamed Dirir, denied that any of Puntland’s troops were involved in the seizure of the ship. He said it was hijacked by “Somali pirates.”

The vessel, the Aris 13, was a small tanker delivering fuel, according to John Steed, a retired British army colonel who is now the Horn of Africa regional manager for Oceans Beyond Piracy, a program based in Colorado that works to combat piracy.

“The local authorities up there confirm pirates have a ship they are holding, and are holding the crew against their will,” Steed said in an interview on Twitter.

The Sri Lankan government acknowledged that eight of its citizens were aboard the ship.

“While the vessel involved is not registered under a Sri Lankan flag, it has an eight-member Sri Lankan crew,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “The Ministry continues to remain in touch with the shipping agents, concerned authorities, as well as relevant Sri Lanka Missions overseas to ascertain further information on the matter in order to ensure the safety and welfare of the Sri Lankan crew.”

Chulpathmendra Dahanayake, the head of mission at Sri Lanka’s High Commission in Nairobi, Kenya, said by telephone that he had asked officials from the United Nations and Somalia “to investigate the matter and get back to us.”

“In case this is true,” he said, “we will probably be asking for a heavy-handed interference from U.S. forces for their release.”

A U.N. report last October found that the number of Somalia-based piracies had plunged to 15 in 201516 from 237 in 2011.