Islamabad, Pakistan — Somalia has pledged to work with Pakistan to secure the release of 11 Pakistani sailors held aboard the hijacked oil tanker Honour 25, officials and diplomatic sources said Thursday.
Pakistan’s Foreign Office said Islamabad remained in contact with Somali authorities after armed pirates seized the tanker near Somalia last week and took the Pakistani crew members and the vessel’s Indonesian captain hostage.
Foreign Office spokesman Tahir Andrabi said the pirates had also contacted the ship’s owner.
Diplomatic sources told Somalia Today that Somalia had given written assurances that it would support efforts to rescue the crew and ensure their safe return.
Sources say Mogadishu pledged full cooperation after Islamabad raised the case directly with Somali authorities.
Families plead for action
Six armed men seized the tanker on April 21 off the Somali coast, according to maritime and security reports.
The vessel had 17 crew members on board, including the Indonesian captain and 11 Pakistanis, several of them from Karachi.
A video that surfaced after the hijacking appeared to show crew members crammed into a small space in poor conditions, deepening fears among families who say they have received little direct information about their relatives.
Second engineer Syed Hussain Yousaf, who left Karachi in January, is among those on board.
His wife, Amreen Yousaf, said she last spoke properly to him on the day the pirates seized the tanker.
“After that, we lost contact for two days,” she said.
His daughter Batool said the uncertainty had affected her schooling and left the family desperate for answers.
“We feel very worried and don’t know what will happen,” she said.
Pakistan’s Maritime Affairs Minister Junaid Anwar Chaudhry has sought a detailed report on the hijacking and directed authorities to intensify efforts to recover the crew.
The ministry said it remained in constant contact with relevant agencies and had asked the Foreign Office to begin urgent diplomatic engagement with Somalia.
Sindh Governor Nehal Hashmi said the families had approached his office and insisted the government had not forgotten the hostages.
“They are not abandoned; the government stands with them,” he said, adding that Pakistan’s embassy was in “full contact” with relevant parties.
Piracy fears return
The Honour 25 incident has renewed concern that Somali pirate networks, once largely contained by international naval patrols, are again probing gaps in maritime security.
The European Union Naval Force’s Operation Atalanta confirmed this week that it was monitoring the Honour 25 and another hijacked vessel, the merchant ship Sward.
It said the Honour 25 reported a piracy incident on April 21 and that a Japanese maritime patrol aircraft later confirmed the tanker’s location inside Somali territorial waters.
Atalanta said its assets reached the pirated tanker on April 25 and remained in the area. It added that the vessel posed no threat to other ships.
The EU force said it also maintained direct contact with Somali forces and continued to exchange information on the piracy cases.
The Maritime Security Centre Indian Ocean said authorities were investigating three piracy-related incidents: the Honour 25, a dhow hijacked on April 25, and the Sward, seized on April 26.
It urged vessels within 150 nautical miles of the Somali coast between Mogadishu and Hafun to maintain heightened vigilance.
Somali piracy peaked in 2011, when gunmen launched attacks across the Indian Ocean, sometimes thousands of kilometres from the Somali coast.
International naval patrols, armed guards and tighter industry security measures later drove attacks down sharply. But recent hijackings have revived fears that armed groups are exploiting reduced patrol coverage and wider turmoil in nearby shipping lanes.
Pressure on shipping routes
The crisis comes as global shipping faces pressure from several fronts, including tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and continued insecurity in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Andrabi said Pakistan wanted maritime flows restored and warned that disruption in the Strait of Hormuz would affect countries far beyond the region.
“The closure of the Strait of Hormuz affects the entire world,” he said.
He said the world needed the strait to remain open for energy, trade and the movement of goods, adding that Islamabad stayed in contact with relevant parties and hoped negotiations would succeed.
“We hope the negotiations will succeed and the trade route will be restored,” Andrabi said.
“We are in contact with the relevant parties on the matter. Regarding negotiations, both new and old proposals are on the table. We hope peace will prevail,” he added, referring to efforts to ease tensions between the United States and Iran.
For the families in Karachi, however, the immediate concern is not the wider geopolitics of maritime security, but the fate of the sailors still trapped aboard the Honour 25.
They have appealed to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Naval Chief Admiral Naveed Ashraf to act urgently and bring the crew home, as Pakistani and Somali officials continue efforts to secure their release.