Gulf of Aden Pirates
On 13 March 2017, Somali pirates captured the Aris 13 oil tanker and its eight Sri-Lankan crew members.
Aris 13 was transporting bunker oil from Djibouti to Mogadishu when it was attacked by armed men aboard two skiffs.
The vessel's capture was the first successful hijacking of a commercial vessel by Somali pirates since 2012. The number of attacks has dropped from 168 in 2008 to three unsuccessful attempts in 2014, thanks in particular to the European Union's Operation Atalanta organised within the framework of UN resolutions to counter piracy in the Western Indian Ocean.