Pirates firing machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades have boarded a tanker off the coast of Somalia.

Greek shipping company Latsco Marine Management confirmed its vessel, Hellas Aphrodite, had been attacked in the early hours of Thursday.

The tanker, which was carrying fuel, was en route from India to South Africa when a "security incident" took place, the firm said.

"All 24 crew are safe and accounted for and we remain in close contact with them," it added in a statement.

The crew members took shelter in the ship's "citadel", or fortified safe room, and remain there, an official from maritime security company Diaplous said.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency issued an alert to warn ships in the area.

It located the vessel 560 nautical miles southeast of Eyl, Somalia, in the Indian Ocean. Eyl became famous in the mid-2000s as the centre of a string of piracy attacks.

"The Master of a vessel has reported being approached by one small craft on its stern. The small craft fired small arms and RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] towards the vessel," UKMTO said in a statement.

EU forces move in on tanker

The European Union's Operation Atalanta, a counter-piracy mission around the Horn of Africa, said one of its assets was "close to the incident" and "ready to take the appropriate actions".

That EU force has responded to other recent pirate attacks in the area and had issued a recent alert that a pirate group was operating off Somalia and assaults were "almost certain" to happen.

Private security firm Ambrey has claimed that Somali pirates were operating from an Iranian fishing boat they had seized and had opened fire on the tanker.

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Pirate gangs resume attacks

Thursday's attack comes after another vessel, the Cayman Islands-flagged Stolt Sagaland, found itself targeted in a suspected pirate attack that included both its armed security force and the attackers shooting at each other, the EU force said.

The vessel's operator Stolt-Nielsen confirmed there was an attempted attack, early on 3 November, which was unsuccessful.

Somali pirate gangs have been relatively inactive in recent years. In May 2024, suspected pirates boarded the Liberian-flagged vessel Basilisk. EU naval forces later rescued the 17 crew members.

Meanwhile, the last hijacking took place in December 2023, when the Maltese-flagged Ruen was taken by assailants to the Somali coast before Indian naval forces freed the crew and arrested the attackers.

Hellas Aphrodite was en route from Sikka, India, to Durban, South Africa.

The Malta-flagged tanker is described as an oil/chemical tanker, 183m long and 32m wide, which was built in 2016, according to vesselfinder.com.

(c) Sky News 2025: Pirates firing machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades board tanker off Somalia coast