The Indian Navy said Tuesday it had rescued an Iranian fishing boat hijacked by Somali pirates, the latest such attack in the Indian Ocean.
The warship INS Sumitra
“enforced the release”
of the 19 Pakistani crew members and the Iranian-flagged fishing vessel Al Naeemi located some 850 nautical miles (about 1,550 km) west of the Indian city of Kochi (south), reported the spokesperson.
In total,
“11 Somali pirates”
took the staff hostage.
Indian forces deployed marine commandos and a helicopter.
Photos released by the Indian Navy show members of the special forces boarding the boat at night, then standing and armed facing a group of men kneeling with their hands tied behind their backs on the ship's deck.
Resurgence of attacks in the Indian Ocean
On Monday, the Indian navy said it had freed the 17 crew members of the Iman, a fishing boat also flying the Iranian flag and hijacked by pirates from Somalia.
Ship takeovers off Somalia raise fears of a resurgence of attacks in the Indian Ocean by opportunistic pirates, as Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels carry out their own attacks at sea Red and in the Gulf of Aden.
The Houthis say they are targeting ships linked to Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Israel is at war with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
Faced with these attacks, international naval forces have moved from the northern Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea, raising fears of a resurgence of piracy in this less secure area.
For the first time since 2017, an attack by Somali pirates was reported in December.
Pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia reached a peak in 2011, with operations launched up to more than 3,500 kilometers from the Somali coast in the Indian Ocean, before their numbers declined sharply in recent years with the deployment of warships or even armed guards aboard commercial ships.