Puntland forces retook the hijacked oil tanker MT Hoarner 25 off the coast of Somalia after five crew members were killed during the seizure, according to Bile Qabowsade. The tanker had been taken in April while sailing with about 18,500 barrels of oil bound for Mogadishu, turning a months-long hijacking into a fatal case of piracy off the coast of Somalia.
Bile Qabowsade, Puntland’s Deputy Information Minister, told the that “the five were killed by pirates before regional forces boarded MT Hoarner 25.” The dead included three Pakistani nationals, one Indian and one national of Myanmar. Four other crew members were injured, including three Pakistanis and one Indian, and 16 suspected pirates were arrested after the vessel was recovered.
Puntland and MT Hoarner 25
Officials said the tanker had 17 crew members on board when six armed men seized it in April. The crew included 10 Pakistanis, four Indonesians, one Indian, one Sri Lankan and one Myanmar national. The vessel was later anchored near the Somali coast between Xaafun and Bander Beyla before Puntland forces moved in.
The capture fits a wider pattern along Somalia’s coast. Piracy fell sharply after 2011 following international naval operations, but attacks and hijackings have increased again in recent years. For the families of the dead, the immediate facts are brutal: the ship was taken, the crew was trapped for months, and five people were killed before the rescue team got aboard.
Bile Qabowsade on the killings
Qabowsade’s account leaves the central violence fixed in place and the method unanswered. He said pirates killed the five before regional forces boarded MT Hoarner 25, but officials have not given further detail on how the killings happened. What is clear is that the recovery did not end with a simple handover; it ended with deaths, injuries and arrests on a tanker that had been carrying oil for Mogadishu.
For the surviving crew, the immediate next step is not travel but the aftermath onshore: injury care, identification of the dead, and the pursuit of the escaped suspects officials said were still being hunted. The vessel is back under control, but the account of how five crew members were killed before Puntland forces retook it remains the unresolved fact hanging over the case.
