Global shipping has faced a chaotic two months: the Strait of Hormuz has been largely closed to commercial traffic, attacks in the Red Sea have threatened vessels, and now a third danger has emerged — a sharp rise in Somali piracy.
Even before the latest tensions between the United States, Israel and Iran, roughly half of the ships traveling from Asia and the Gulf to Europe were already avoiding the Red Sea and Suez Canal because of earlier Houthi attacks. Faced with the risk around the Bab el-Mandeb strait, many operators rerouted ships around southern Africa, a detour that adds two to three weeks and thousands of nautical miles to each voyage — and sends vessels close to Somalia’s long, vulnerable coastline.
That proximity appears to be paying off for pirate networks. In the three weeks leading up to May 8, 2026, three vessels were reported hijacked off Somalia and nearby Yemen: the tankers Honour 25 and Eureka and the cargo ship Sward. All three remained under pirate control as of that date.
Analysts say organized crime groups in Somalia are exploiting the broader Middle East crisis. International naval patrols that were deployed to counter piracy after the 2008 surge have been stretched thin by operations around Hormuz and in the Red Sea, reducing the deterrent along Somalia’s 3,300-kilometre coastline. Tim Walker, a senior researcher on transnational threats, notes that pirates now perceive fewer obstacles to seizing ships and holding crews for ransom.
European Union naval mission Operation Atalanta and the multinational Combined Task Force 151 still maintain a presence in the western Indian Ocean, but these forces must patrol vast areas and do not provide continuous escort coverage for individual merchant vessels.
Maritime intelligence firms report at least two active pirate networks operating mainly from Puntland in northeastern Somalia. These groups appear to be relatively well funded and have begun using large traditional dhows — normally fishing and local trading vessels — as motherships. Outfitted with navigation equipment, weapons and boarding gear, the dhows let pirates operate far from shore for weeks and launch attacks on commercial shipping.
Troels Burchall Henningsen, an assistant professor who studies strategy and maritime security, describes recent hijackings as complex, investment-heavy operations that rely on such mother ships. Observers also note that more commercial vessels are now present in the rerouted corridors, and some are not adopting robust security measures; one tanker heading to Mogadishu was taken close to the Somali coast at a point of maximum vulnerability.
The economic implications are worrying. Conflicts in the Middle East have already pushed insurance premiums higher, added about a million dollars in fuel costs per voyage for ships taking the longer route, and driven freight rates up. A renewed wave of piracy could increase those costs further and disrupt trade flows.
At the height of the previous Somali piracy crisis around 2011, annual economic damage from hijackings was estimated at roughly $7 billion. That figure included military operations, rerouting, higher fuel consumption from faster transits, extra security equipment and onboard guards. Actual ransom payouts represented a small share of the total — about $160 million — according to a Japanese think tank’s calculations.
Policy choices have likely contributed to the current vulnerability. For years, U.S. development funding targeted coastal communities in Somalia to reduce poverty and the pool of recruits for pirate groups. Under the current U.S. administration, most non-security development aid to the region was suspended in favor of direct counter-terrorism operations against groups such as al-Shabaab. Critics say cutting those development and capacity-building programs has weakened local intelligence networks and reduced the ability of maritime patrols and community-based monitoring to detect and deter piracy.
Shipping and maritime organisations are warning operators to avoid Somali territorial waters and ports where possible. They also stress that deploying armed guards aboard commercial vessels is an effective deterrent; maritime experts point out there has never been a successful hijacking off Somalia of a ship that had armed guards on board.
With international naval assets tied up elsewhere and criminal groups exploiting the security gap, the resurgence of Somali piracy threatens to compound already serious disruptions to global trade and raise costs for shippers and consumers alike.