Armed attackers hijacked an oil tanker off the coast of Yemen. The ship is sailing to Somalia

Unidentified armed attackers hijacked an oil tanker off the coast of Yemen's Shabwa province in the Gulf of Aden and steered it towards Somalia, the Yemeni Coast Guard said on Saturday.

The coast guard, which is affiliated with Yemen's internationally recognized government and not the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, said it would investigate the incident, AFP reported.

According to the MarineTraffic website, Eureka is a tanker transporting petroleum products flying the Togolese flag, which was in the Emirate port of Fujairah at the end of March.

The British shipping safety monitoring agency UKMTO also reported suspicious activity near Shabwa province on Saturday. The bulk carrier reported that a small boat and a fishing vessel had come within 500 meters of it.

It is unclear whether the UKMTO report is related to the information provided by the Yemeni Coast Guard.

Piracy off the coast of Somalia increased after 2008, peaking in 2011 with hundreds of attacks reported. The phenomenon was later reduced by international maritime patrols and changes in shipping practices.

The number of incidents has been increasing again in recent weeks, according to a report by the EU maritime mission operating off the coast of Somalia. Three attacks were reported at the end of April alone.

Since February 28, shipping in the region has been additionally disrupted due to the US and Israel's war with Iran, but there is no indication yet that Saturday's kidnapping was related to it. (PAP)

bye/adj/