The International Maritime Organization (IMO) reported that, as of late August 2026, six vessels and over 90 seafarers remained in the custody of pirates and armed robbers operating in the region.[3] Figures from the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) tell a similar story—Somali pirates were responsible for 94 per cent of all crew members taken hostage globally during the first half of 2026.[4]

The number of attacks, however, remains far below the levels recorded in 2009–2011. This time, the attacks are occurring inside a far more contested geopolitical environment. Piracy is resurging as the international architecture built to suppress it frays, and a new set of external powers (Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan) are vying to fill the vacuum left by the United States.

For India, which has spent the past few years building the operational and legal capacity to respond to Somali piracy, the shifting strategic configuration of the Horn of Africa merits closer policy attention.

Resurgence of Somali Piracy

The immediate trigger for piracy’s resurgence has been a widening opportunity at sea. The multinational naval patrols that have policed Somali waters since 2008 are now stretched thinner than at any point in the past decade. Assets have been diverted towards the Red Sea in response to Houthi attacks on shipping and towards the Strait of Hormuz amid the US–Iran confrontation. The European Union’s Operation ATALANTA, once the backbone of international counter-piracy efforts, now maintains a presence of one to three surface combat vessels and one maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft at any given time.[5]

Compounding this diminished naval footprint is a degree of complacency among merchant crews, who, after years of relative calm, have relaxed their precautionary measures. Measures such as carrying armed guards on board, maintaining higher transit speeds, and keeping a greater standoff distance from the coast had previously proven effective. If anything, the IMO’s continued discouragement of armed self-defence measures has reinforced this drift rather than correcting it.

But the deeper causes are onshore, not at sea. Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing by foreign fleets continues to erode Somalia’s coastal economy.[6] Pirates continue to exploit the perception that hijacking is a form of self-defence against illegal foreign fishing. A fractured and cash-strapped federal government in Mogadishu, preoccupied with an Al-Shabaab insurgency, has never managed to rebuild the naval and coastguard capabilities needed to police its own waters.

One tactic has........

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