(NAIROBI, KENYA) – Piracy has returned to the western Indian Ocean, with six commercial ships hijacked off the Horn of Africa since April 2026, threatening to raise import costs for Kenya and landlocked neighbours including South Sudan.
The shipping industry lifted East Africa’s high risk label in January 2023 after more than a decade of relative calm. No decision to restore it has been announced.
Six ships have been seized since April. One of them, the MV Sward, was carrying fertilizer to Mombasa when it was taken on 26th April. It was held for about 138 days before being freed in September after a reported ransom.
The International Maritime Organization said in August that more than 90 seafarers were being held captive. It has recorded at least 15 attacks in the region this year, the most since 2013.
Five of the six ships are now free. Puntland security sources say ransoms were paid for the Sward and another vessel, although the Somali federal government says the latter was freed by Turkish and Somali forces. The Cibuan was recovered in late September. On 29th September, Puntland police recovered the Honour 25 and the Eureka.
One tanker, the Asana, is still being held with 22 crew on board. The vessel was hijacked on 17th July about 65 nautical miles southwest of Mukalla, Yemen, while carrying oil products to Bosaso.
It is not yet the peak of 2011 when hijackings reached 237, but the trend is a cause for alarm.
Piracy carries direct costs for Kenya’s economy. In 2025, the Mombasa port handled 45.45 million tons of cargo, of which 15.88 million tons was transit cargo for neighbouring countries. Uganda accounted for about two thirds of transit cargo in 2024, followed by South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.
This is how a hijacking off Somalia ends up on a shelf in Kampala, Juba or Nairobi.
At the last peak of piracy, the Kenya Shippers Council estimated piracy was adding about KES 2 billion ($23.8 million) a month to import costs and could push up the price of imported goods by as much as 10%.
Cruise ship visits to Mombasa fell from 40 in 2007 to just two within four years. The One Earth Future Foundation put the macroeconomic cost to Kenya at $414 million.
The return of piracy also raises concerns for Lamu port. Last week, ground was broken at Mako for the $16 billion Dangote East Africa refinery designed to process 700,000 barrels of crude a day. Lamu is its logistics anchor, handling crude imports and refined fuel exports, with crude expected from Turkana and other sources.
Four of the six ships hijacked this year were tankers. Five crew of the tanker Honour 25 were killed on 29th September when Puntland police retook the ship. They appear to be the first deaths at the hands of Somali pirates in more than a decade.
Andrew Mangura, who tracked hijackings from Mombasa during the 2011 peak, says killing crew is not part of Somali pirates’ typical approach. Historically, Somali pirates do not kill hostages because the hostage is a main bargaining chip, along with the cargo.
The Institute for Security Studies says illegal fishing and community grievances in Somalia have to be addressed to tackle the root causes of piracy.
The shipping industry lifted East Africa’s high risk label in 2023. No decision to restore it has been announced.
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