The lemon-laden Fahad-4, hijacked in late April, was used as a mothership to attack other ships.Published On 7 May 20267 May 2026An Emirati dhow hijacked by Somali pirates last month has been abandoned in the Arabian Sea after the gang failed to use the vessel to attack other ships, security officials in Somalia’s Puntland region told the AFP news agency.An 11-member pirate group seized the Fahad-4 in late April about 10 nautical miles (19km) off the coastal town of Dhinowda in northeastern Somalia.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listThere was no immediate information on the fate of the crew of the lemon-laden dhow, and Somali authorities have yet to publicly comment on the status of the vessel.Puntland security officials told AFP that the pirates had set out from an area near the port of Garacad, some 600km (373 miles) north of the Somali capital, Mogadishu.After taking control of the dhow, the pirates “sailed Somali waters using the hijacked ship as a mothership to attempt to attack other ships”, one of the officials told AFP.The pirates were then forced to abandon the boat on May 4 as “their supplies were running short and they weren’t able to attack other ships because of a heightened alert by ships sailing through Somali waters in recent weeks”, another official told AFP.The incident is the latest in a series of hijackings that have renewed fears of Somali piracy after years of relative calm in one of the world’s busiest maritime corridors.According to the Joint Maritime Information Centre (JMIC), a multinational body monitoring maritime security in the Indian Oce …
