The products tanker is back under Puntland’s control after more than five months in pirate captivity. Authorities report five crew deaths and four injuries, but the circumstances of the deaths and arrangements for the survivors remain unclear.

Security forces in Somalia’s Puntland region retook the Palau-flagged products tanker Honour 25 on Sept. 29, ending a hijacking that began in April. The Puntland Maritime Police Force (PMPF) said five crew members had died and four were wounded. The deaths make the fate of the seafarers, rather than the recovery of the vessel alone, the central question following the operation.

According to the PMPF, the dead were three Pakistani nationals, one Indian and one Myanmar national. Three Pakistani crew members and one Indian were injured. Puntland’s information ministry also reported five deaths, according to Reuters. The PMPF said the crew members died before its operation began, but did not specify when or provide a detailed account of the circumstances. The casualty figures and sequence of events have yet to be independently verified.

Questions remain over the crew

EU naval mission Operation Atalanta recorded the hijacking on April 21 and said the tanker had up to 17 people aboard, most of them Pakistani. Some subsequent reports gave a different crew total. An authoritative, crew-by-crew account is still needed to establish the status of everyone aboard when the vessel was seized.

The PMPF said the tanker was under Puntland government control after the operation. Its initial account did not establish where the surviving seafarers had been taken, what treatment the injured had received, or when families and national authorities would receive confirmed details. Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported that relatives were seeking information about the injured and the dead in the hours after the vessel was recovered.

Those unanswered questions follow months of concern about conditions aboard. In July, the International Maritime Organization called for the release of seafarers held on Honour 25 and two other vessels off Somalia. It warned that the captive crews were running critically low on food and water while facing the threat of violence.

A second rescue, a different outcome

The recovery of Honour 25 came days after Puntland forces freed another hijacked tanker, Sibu 1, whose 20 crew members were reported safe. The contrasting outcomes underscore a practical limit of a successful counter-piracy operation: regaining control of a ship does not establish that its crew survived captivity unharmed.

For operators transiting the Gulf of Aden and waters off Somalia, the case reinforces the need for route-specific security assessments, prompt incident reporting and plans for crew support if a vessel is seized. The IMO has urged shipowners and operators to follow maritime security best practices and assess risks before transiting the region. The immediate priority in this case is a verified account of the casualties, medical care for the injured and arrangements to bring the surviving crew and the dead home.