Tanker boarded in Gulf of Aden as Yemen coast guard cites Somali pirates

Unidentified people illegally boarded a tanker in the Gulf of Aden, maritime security agencies reported, while Yemen's coast guard said the ship had been captured by Somali pirates.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said the incident took place 65 nautical miles south of Mukalla, on Yemen's south coast. UKMTO said military authorities reported that unauthorised personnel boarded the vessel while it was travelling east through the Gulf of Aden.

Yemen's coast guard said the vessel was a chemical tanker named the Asana and that it had been captured by a group of Somali pirates. It said the tanker was heading southeast towards Somalia.

Maritime security company Ambrey said the Tanzania-flagged vessel did not have an armed security team on board. It also said a South Korean navy vessel was on its way to assist the tanker.

The Maritime Security Centre Indian Ocean, the information service for the European Union's anti-piracy naval mission in the area, said it was investigating the incident and monitoring the vessel.

The shipping route between Yemen and the Horn of Africa links the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and is among the world's busiest. The report said sea traffic has also been significantly disrupted in the Strait of Hormuz because of the Middle East war.

The Joint Maritime Information Centre, run by a 47-nation coalition deployed in the northern Indian Ocean against piracy off the Horn of Africa, raised its alert level to severe in early May, its second-highest level. The move followed a series of attacks by Somali pirates who seized vessels off Yemen and off Puntland in northeastern Somalia.