‘If you don’t stop, they’ll kill all of us’: Somali pirates are back with a vengeance

A knock at second engineer Syed Hussain Yousuf’s cabin door.

Three minutes later, a dozen pirates were aboard the Honour 25. They showed their guns to the diesel tanker’s crew. Everyone to the bridge.

It was the afternoon of April 21. For five months, most of the 17 crew would remain confined to that space, no more than 50 feet long, seated, leaving only when escorted to the bathroom.

Somali piracy is back.

A scourge that emerged more than 30 years ago – and grew into an $18 billion criminal enterprise by the 2010s – had been mostly wiped out. But economic calamity combined with opportunity , particularly from the Iran war, has emboldened Somalia’s pirates to return to the seas in search of multimillion-dollar ransom payments.

America’s Navy is focused elsewhere, away from the Somali coast toward a war in the Persian Gulf. Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden have rerouted oil tanker traffic close to Somalia . Surging fuel prices have made their cargo lucrative targets.

And Somalis have become desperate. Surging fuel and food costs and a reliance on disrupted exports from Gulf nations have derailed Somalia’s fragile economic recovery this year.

All of that came to a head aboard the dilapidated Honour 25, where a monthslong standoff came to a violent end last month.

Five crew members didn’t make it out alive.

Diesel costs have nearly doubled during the war. Attacks on vessels in and around the Red Sea and Persian Gulf have sent insurance costs surging.

That has forced oil and shipping companies into difficult but pragmatic choices. Deep-pocketed companies are rerouting traffic around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, adding weeks and millions of dollars in fuel costs to their routes to avoid Houthis and Somali pirates, who are terrorizing ships transiting through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. But smaller outfits with tighter budgets or sketchy safety records are cutting corners to save money. Some are risking the perilous trip through the Bab-al-Mandeb strait. A few are sailing closer to Somalia to avoid Houthis off the coast of Yemen.

The Honour 25 was on its way from Shinas Port in Oman to supply Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, with 2,700 tons of diesel.

Crewmember Yassir Khan knew the job was unsafe. It was the Pakistani crew’s second trip to Mogadishu this year. The first, in January, went smoothly.

But the ship was rusted and its engine and generators faulty, Khan said. And it lacked standard anti-piracy security protocols.

“No guards. No barbed wires. No nothing,” he said.

Since 2008, no ship with armed guards has been successfully attacked, said Tim Walker, maritime project leader at the Institute for Security Studies, Africa.

“The ships being hijacked aren’t carrying guards to deter pirates,” Walker said. “And those ship owners are likelier to disappear before the ransom is paid.”

The shots started ringing out after 2 pm.

Khan looked out from his porthole. A half dozen Somali pirates, some with AK-47s, were firing at the bulkhead.

He ran from the engine room. He knocked on the cabin doors.

The Honour 25 had been in the Gulf of Aden at the time of the attack. The pirates, arriving in two small boats, quickly seized control and stopped the engine.

Obtained from Hussain Yousuf

The first three days were filled with threats. Guns pointed at the crews’ heads. Instructions to sit. No talking. Shots fired in the air.

The crew begged the pirates to stop shooting, Khan said.

“It has 2,700 tons of diesel,” Khan said. “If you fire a gun, it can make a spark, and it will explode the ship.”

More boats came with more pirates – three dozen, all Somali. Yousuf (the Honour 25 engineer) estimates they were in their late 20s to late 40s. They took on assignments – the pump room, the engine room, the forecastle, the bridge.

The crew were directed to take the ship to the coastal fishing village Durdura. Two nautical miles off the coast, they dropped anchor.

The starting ransom: $7 million.

It took the pirates time to figure out where to direct their demand. The crew had been told the Honour 25 belonged to a Somali named Osman Shire Quud. But his name was nowhere on the ship’s blueprints.

Eventually the pirates tracked down the ship’s management company: Wharf Chartering, which did not respond to requests for comment. After a series of calls, the company bargained down the ransom to $1 million, Yousuf said.

At first, crewmembers were able to call home to Pakistan once a week for five minutes. Then once every two weeks. Then once a month. The calls stopped in July.

Shahzaib Akber/EPA/Shutterstock

The hostages’ families mounted a pressure campaign, protesting outside government offices in Karachi, Melbourne and London to attract attention to the Honour 25 crew’s plight.

Wharf Chartering made repeated promises of a rescue.

“So we were just waiting,” said Khan’s wife, Mahwish. “And we kept waiting for five and a half months.”

Somali piracy emerged in the early 1990s after the government collapsed. Locals formed militias to protect coastal waters from illegal fishing and dumping.

Gradually, the militias began hijacking ships. Somali pirates attacked 1,000 vessels and collected more than $400 million in ransom payments between 2005 and 2012, according to Matthew Reisener, senior national security adviser at the Center for Maritime Strategy. Authorities reported 237 piracy incidents in 2011 alone. One particularly harrowing hijacking – and subsequent rescue by US Navy SEALs – inspired a Hollywood movie starring Tom Hanks.

Somali pirates cost the global economy about $18 billion a year , according to a 2013 World Bank report. Western governments took action. The forces of NATO, the EU and the US-led Combined Maritime Task Force curtailed piracy for a decade, with just two successful reported hijackings between 2013 and 2023. The US Navy assumed a leading role in the multilateral, 47-nation operation.

The rebound started in late 2023, when authorities reported the first successful hijacking of a merchant vessel by Somali pirates since 2017.

It picked up steam following the war in Iran, which devastated Somalia’s already reeling economy.

Different authorities have distinct ways of tracking piracy. But incidents of boarding, armed robberies, hijacking or other piracy are the most in a decade and a half, according to the EU Naval Force’s Operation ATALANTA .

Drought has devastated Somalia’s food supply. War drove up energy costs and the price of nearly everything: Somali imports some 90% of its essential goods. And it has struggled to sell its exports to its biggest customer, Saudi Arabia, during the war.

“Need, not just opportunity, is driving the spike in piracy,” noted Reisener.

The Somali pirates arrived at the Honour 25 emaciated. They devoured the food meant for the Honour 25’s crew. They looted clothing and bedding.

“They took everything to eat from the provision store,” said Yousuf. “Everything our cook used to cook for us.”

The pirates told the crew they were poor and from a collection of various locations across the country. Some from Bosaso, some from elsewhere. Some were related to one another.

After a month, the food on the Honour 25 ran out.

“They were so hungry,” said Khan. “Very thin, very tall. They are nothing. You could only slap him, and he would fall down. But he had a gun, so he was strong.”

Driven by hunger, the pirates sailed through an opening the war in Iran blew wide open.

A redistribution of naval assets to the Persian Gulf and Bab al-Mandeb strait had diverted resources away from counter-piracy patrols. Increased Houthi activity in the Gulf of Aden has pushed some ships closer to the Somalian coast.

And oil tankers, which can hold hundreds of thousands or even millions of barrels of oil, have become hugely valuable as oil prices have soared to over $100 in recent months.

Pirates’ recent successes in obtaining multimillion-dollar ransoms for oil tankers have inspired even more pirates, argued analysts at Castor Vali, an Africa-focused risk management company. Some ransom demands have surged as high as $10 million.

“It’s more lucrative to attack now,” said Walker. “For one activity, pirates can get a very large payout – even a couple million dollars.”

At one point this summer, six vessels had been hijacked simultaneously with 90 crew members held hostage, according to Operation ATALANTA.

“Where there is instability, the bad boys and the pirates – they use it,” Vice Admiral Ignacio Villanueva, Commander of Operation Atalanta, told CNN.

The European Union continues to run Operation Atalanta, but its counter-piracy footprint pales in comparison to what the international community, led by the United States, had collectively deployed to the Somalia coast over the past decade and a half, Reisener said.

“As long as Iran and the Houthis continue to threaten maritime commerce, America and its regional partners will remain primarily focused on those threats, allowing piracy to flourish,” he said.

Many smaller ships and tankers have taken on the risk of traveling through the dangerous waters to avoid the enormous fuel cost and significant delays associated with navigating around the entire continent of Africa.

Houthi activity off the coast of Yemen has brought some of those ships closer to the coast of Somalia – and within the sights of pirates. But Somali pirates have been venturing outside their traditional territory. The oil tanker MT Eureka, for example, was hijacked by Somali pirates on April 22 less than three nautical miles from an oil terminal off the coast of Yemen, 200 miles away from Somalia.

And the pirates are more sophisticated now than during their 2010s peak. Some are using GPS and satellite devices used to track commercial vessels.

Maritime security experts aren’t sure where the pirates are getting their funding. The Houthis are a possibility. Authorities from the semi-autonomous Somali Puntland region tie piracy to the Al Shabaab, which could be funding their efforts. Pirates’ families could be pooling resources.

The pirates that attacked the Honour 25 didn’t have sophisticated equipment. But they were able to restock the ship. When the tanker’s food was exhausted, suppliers started bringing rice, daal, tomatoes and potatoes. Some sugar. A bit of oil. They sometimes brought goats or lambs aboard for slaughter.

And they chewed lots of khat – a popular stimulant. The tough, tobacco-like greens grow readily in Somalia.

“They ate khat all the time. Somebody asked how much it cost. He said one bundle was $60,” said Yousuf. “Somebody invested in these pirates.”

Five months is a long time for anyone to stay on an oil tanker – it was grueling for the pirates, too, even though they could walk about the ship and would, on a rotating basis, return home for short stretches, particularly around holidays. Even pirates need a vacation.

But the grim mood began to lift in mid-September. A deal had purportedly been struck to pay the ransom.

“They said the negotiation was finished and the deal was final. The $1 million would be coming, and they were happy,” Yousuf said. “They also wanted to go.”

In mid-September, the ship was taken to Garacad, another coastal port city. The pirates told the crew the ship owner’s hired negotiator had demanded a physical fitness test for the crew. The crew were allowed to shave and cut their hair.

“We were very happy,” Khan said.

They didn’t know a different plan to free them had already been hatched.

Authorities from Puntland region strongly object to ransom payments.

The Puntland government often refuses vessel owners from using airspace to helicopter cash to hijacked vessels.

The Puntland Maritime Police Force, a Coast Guard like operation, has ramped up its counter-piracy efforts in recent weeks.

On September 25, the Puntland Maritime Police launched an operation to free the crew of the Sibu 1, an oil tanker captured off the coast of Yemen on August 20 that was carrying 20 crew members.

The police killed one pirate, injured 5 and took the remaining 41 into custody. The entire crew, most of whom were from India, were set free.

A call came into the Honour 25 shortly after the Sibu 1 operation.

“Their pirates told our pirates this ship is coming to you also,” Khan recalled. “Be aware.”

The pirates lifted anchor and set sail back to Durdura. Three days later, on September 28, they arrived and dropped anchor.

The crew went to sleep for their last night in captivity.

Their sleep ended suddenly at 2 am. The pirates had seen a light. A ship was approaching.

The crew were arranged around the center of the deck in a human shield.

The pirates pointed their guns at the crew’s heads for two hours.

It was a false alarm. The terrorized crewmembers were sent back to their bunks.

They were roused again at 7 am. Another ship was approaching. It was the Puntland police.

A dozen of the crew were taken to the ship’s catwalk in the middle of the deck. The pirates took off their shirts and tied their hands to the ship’s railing behind their backs. Khan was among them.

Obtained by Yasir Khan

Yousuf was led down to the engine room. He started the engine. Then he was taken back on deck and saw the crew tied up on the catwalk.

Gunfire. Lots of it. Flying right over the crew’s heads. A half hour of gunfire.

An Indonesian boy named Fiki, part of the Honour 25 crew, was operating the crane, helping the fleeing pirates get the lifeboats down into the sea.

A pirate named Arab angrily shouted at his comrades that were trying to flee. He shot Fiki in the feet. He approached the tied-up crew. He reloaded his AK-47 and held down the trigger.

“He put on the burst,” said Khan. “He was just shooting like crazy.”

First, he hit second officer Kashif Umer in the head and backside. Umer was dead. Then a stray bullet hit another pirate in the jaw.

That pirate loaded his gun and shot back at Arab. The pirate-on-pirate gunfight went on for 10 minutes. And the tied-up, screaming, praying crew were caught in the middle.

Obtained from Yasir Khan

Khan was shot in the thigh. Some caught bullet fragments. Four more were shot dead.

“I saw too much blood on the ship,” Khan said. “I never saw such a kind of bloodbath.”

The captain began lowering the lifeboats with the crane. Yousuf called to the attacking ship.

“Please stop the firing. They’ve already killed five persons. If you don’t stop, they’ll kill all of us.”

The pirates went down on the boats and they took off.

A small boat approached. Seven police boarded the Honour.

The ship was too damaged to make the journey to the shore, so the maritime police towed it to a nearby port so the crew could receive medical treatment.

Three hours passed. A boat came. The injured were loaded and carried off to a hospital.

The boat returned, and the crew of the Honour 25 carried away their dead.

有人敲响了二副赛义德·侯赛因·优素福的舱门。

三分钟后，十几名海盗登上了“荣誉25”号。他们向这艘柴油油轮的船员亮出了枪支。所有人到驾驶台去。

那是 4 月 21 日下午。在接下来的五个月里，17 名船员中的大多数人将被限制在这个不超过 50 英尺长的空间里，只能坐着，只有在被护送去洗手间时才能离开。

索马里海盗活动卷土重来。

30多年前出现的海盗祸害——到2010年代已发展成为一个价值180亿美元的犯罪集团——一度基本被消灭。但经济灾难与机遇的叠加，特别是伊朗战争带来的机遇，助长了索马里海盗的胆量，使他们重返大海，企图勒索数百万美元的赎金。

美国海军的重心已从索马里海岸转移到波斯湾的战事上。胡塞武装在红海和亚丁湾的袭击迫使索马里附近的油轮航线改道。飙升的燃油价格使油轮货物成为有利可图的袭击目标。

索马里人已经陷入绝望。燃料和食品价格飙升，以及对海湾国家出口中断的依赖，使索马里今年脆弱的经济复苏进程受阻。

所有这一切都在破旧的“荣誉25号”上达到了顶峰，长达数月的对峙在上个月以暴力事件告终。

五名船员不幸遇难。

战争期间柴油价格几乎翻了一番。红海和波斯湾及其周边地区发生的船只袭击事件导致保险费用飙升。

这迫使石油和航运公司做出艰难但务实的选择。财力雄厚的公司正在绕开非洲好望角，为此，为了避开胡塞武装和索马里海盗——他们经常袭击途经红海和亚丁湾的船只——航线增加了数周时间和数百万美元的燃料成本。但预算紧张或安全记录不佳的小型公司则为了节省成本而偷工减料。一些公司冒险穿越危险的曼德海峡。还有一些公司为了避开也门沿海的胡塞武装，选择更靠近索马里的航线。

“荣誉25”号货轮正从阿曼的希纳斯港驶往索马里首都摩加迪沙，为那里运送2700吨柴油。

机组人员亚西尔·汗知道这项工作很危险。这是巴基斯坦机组人员今年第二次前往摩加迪沙。第一次是在一月份，一切顺利。

但汗说，这艘船锈迹斑斑，发动机和发电机也都坏了，而且缺乏标准的防海盗安全措施。

“没有守卫，没有铁丝网，什么都没有。”他说。

非洲安全研究所海事项目负责人蒂姆·沃克表示，自 2008 年以来，没有一艘配备武装警卫的船只遭到过成功的袭击。

沃克说：“被劫持的船只上没有警卫来阻止海盗。而且，这些船主更有可能在赎金支付之前就消失得无影无踪。”

下午2点以后，枪声开始响起。

汗从舷窗向外望去。六名索马里海盗，有的拿着AK-47步枪，正在向船舱隔板射击。

他从机舱跑了出来，敲响了驾驶室的门。

事发时，“荣誉25”号正在亚丁湾。海盗乘坐两艘小艇抵达，迅速控制了该船并关闭了引擎。

摘自侯赛因·优素福

头三天充满了威胁。枪口抵着机组人员的头。命令他们坐下，不许说话。还鸣枪示警。

汗说，船员们恳求海盗停止射击。

“船上载有2700吨柴油，”汗说。“如果开枪，可能会产生火花，导致船只爆炸。”

更多船只载着更多海盗而来——三十多艘，全是索马里人。优素福（Honour 25号的工程师）估计他们年龄在二十七八岁到四十七八岁之间。他们被分配到不同的岗位——泵房、机房、前甲板、驾驶室。

船员们奉命将船开往沿海渔村杜尔杜拉。他们在离岸两海里的地方抛锚。

初始赎金：700万美元。

海盗们花了好一会儿才想明白该向谁提出要求。船员们之前听说“荣誉25号”属于一个名叫奥斯曼·希雷·库德的索马里人。但是，他的名字并没有出现在船只的蓝图上。

最终，海盗们找到了这艘船的管理公司：码头租赁公司（Wharf Chartering），该公司没有回应置评请求。优素福说，经过一系列电话沟通，该公司最终将赎金降至100万美元。

起初，机组人员每周可以给巴基斯坦的家打一次电话，每次五分钟。后来改为每两周一次。再后来改为每月一次。七月份通话完全停止了。

Shahzaib Akber/EPA/Shutterstock

人质家属发起了一场施压运动，在卡拉奇、墨尔本和伦敦的政府办公楼外举行抗议活动，以引起人们对“荣誉25”号机组人员困境的关注。

码头租赁公司多次承诺会进行救援。

“所以我们只能等，”汗的妻子玛维什说。“我们等了五个半月。”

索马里海盗活动在20世纪90年代初政府垮台后出现。当地人组建民兵组织，保护沿海水域免受非法捕鱼和倾倒垃圾的侵害。

随着时间的推移，民兵组织开始劫持船只。据海事战略中心高级国家安全顾问马修·雷泽纳称，2005年至2012年间，索马里海盗袭击了1000艘船只，并勒索了超过4亿美元的赎金。仅2011年一年，当局就报告了237起海盗事件。其中一起特别惊险的劫持事件——以及随后美国海军海豹突击队的营救行动——启发了一部由汤姆·汉克斯主演的好莱坞电影。

根据世界银行2013年的一份报告，索马里海盗每年给全球经济造成约180亿美元的损失。西方各国政府采取了行动。北约、欧盟和美国领导的联合海上特遣部队的联合行动，在十年间有效遏制了海盗活动，2013年至2023年间仅报告了两起成功的劫持事件。美国海军在这一由47个国家参与的多边行动中发挥了主导作用。

反弹始于 2023 年末，当时当局报告称，自 2017 年以来，索马里海盗首次成功劫持了一艘商船。

伊朗战争爆发后，索马里经济本已岌岌可危，这场战争更是雪上加霜，索马里经济也因此遭受重创。

不同的执法机构追踪海盗行为的方式各不相同。但根据欧盟海军“阿塔兰塔行动”的数据，登船、武装抢劫、劫持或其他海盗行为的发生率是近十五年来最高的。

干旱严重破坏了索马里的粮食供应。战争推高了能源成本和几乎所有商品的价格：索马里约90%的基本生活必需品依赖进口。战争期间，索马里也难以向其最大的客户沙特阿拉伯销售出口商品。

赖斯纳指出：“推动盗版激增的，不仅仅是机会，而是需求。”

索马里海盗抵达“荣誉25”号时，骨瘦如柴。他们狼吞虎咽地吃光了原本留给船员的食物，还抢走了衣物和被褥。

“他们把杂货店里所有能吃的东西都搬走了，”优素福说。“我们厨师以前给我们做的所有东西。”

海盗们告诉船员，他们很穷，来自全国各地。有些人来自博萨索，有些人来自其他地方。他们之间还有一些亲戚关系。

一个月后，“荣誉25”号上的食物就吃完了。

“他们饿坏了，”汗说。“又瘦又高，简直弱不禁风。你轻轻一拍他就倒下了。但他有枪，所以力气很大。”

饥饿驱使着海盗们，他们趁着伊朗战争爆发之际，乘船驶入了一个缺口。

将海军力量重新分配到波斯湾和曼德海峡，导致用于反海盗巡逻的资源减少。胡塞武装在亚丁湾的活动加剧，迫使一些船只靠近索马里海岸。

而油轮，可以装载数十万甚至数百万桶石油，随着近几个月油价飙升至每桶 100 美元以上，变得价值连城。

专注于非洲风险管理的Castor Vali公司的分析师认为，海盗近期在劫持油轮方面屡屡成功，索要数百万美元赎金，这反而助长了更多海盗的气焰。一些赎金要求甚至高达1000万美元。

沃克说：“现在发动袭击更有利可图。一次袭击，海盗就能获得巨额回报——甚至高达数百万美元。”

据“亚特兰大行动”称，今年夏天曾有六艘船只同时被劫持，90名船员被扣为人质。

“哪里局势不稳定，坏人和海盗就会利用它，”亚特兰大行动指挥官伊格纳西奥·维拉纽瓦海军中将告诉 CNN。

雷泽纳表示，欧盟仍在继续开展“阿塔兰塔行动”，但与过去十五年来以美国为首的国际社会在索马里海岸集体部署的反海盗力量相比，其规模相形见绌。

他说：“只要伊朗和胡塞武装继续威胁海上贸易，美国及其地区伙伴仍将主要关注这些威胁，从而放任海盗活动猖獗。”

许多小型船舶和油轮冒着风险穿越危险水域，以避免绕行整个非洲大陆所带来的巨大燃料成本和重大延误。

也门胡塞武装在也门沿海的活动使得一些船只更靠近索马里海岸，也进入了海盗的视线范围。但索马里海盗也开始冒险进入其传统领地之外的区域。例如，4月22日，油轮“尤里卡”号在距离也门海岸一个石油码头不到3海里的地方被索马里海盗劫持，而该码头距离索马里本土200英里。

如今的海盗比2010年代鼎盛时期更加老练。有些海盗甚至使用GPS和卫星设备来追踪商船。

海事安全专家尚不确定海盗的资金来源。胡塞武装是一个可能的来源。索马里半自治邦邦特兰地区的当局将海盗活动与青年党联系起来，青年党可能在资助海盗活动。海盗的家属也可能在筹集资金。

袭击“荣誉25”号的海盗装备并不精良，但他们还是能够为这艘油轮补充物资。当船上的食物耗尽时，供应商开始运送大米、扁豆、西红柿和土豆，还有一些糖和少量食用油。他们有时还会带些山羊或羔羊上船宰杀。

他们还咀嚼大量的卡特草——一种流行的兴奋剂。这种质地坚韧、类似烟草的绿叶植物在索马里很容易生长。

“他们天天吃卡特草。有人问多少钱，他说一捆60美元，”优素福说。“有人投资了这些海盗。”

对任何人来说，在油轮上待五个月都是一段漫长的时光——对海盗来说也同样难熬，尽管他们可以在船上走动，而且会轮流回家短途旅行，尤其是在节假日期间。即使是海盗也需要休假。

但到了九月中旬，阴霾的气氛开始缓和。据说已经达成了支付赎金的协议。

“他们说谈判结束了，交易最终敲定了。100万美元会到账，他们很高兴，”优素福说。“他们也想走了。”

九月中旬，这艘船被拖到另一个沿海港口城市加拉加德。海盗告诉船员，船东雇佣的谈判代表要求船员进行体能测试。船员们被允许刮胡子和剪头发。

“我们非常高兴，”汗说道。

他们并不知道，营救他们的另一个计划早已酝酿完毕。

邦特兰地区当局强烈反对支付赎金。

邦特兰政府经常拒绝船主使用领空用直升机向被劫持的船只运送现金。

邦特兰海事警察部队（类似于海岸警卫队）最近几周加大了打击海盗的力度。

9 月 25 日，邦特兰海事警察展开行动，解救了 8 月 20 日在也门海岸附近被扣押的“西布 1”号油轮上的船员，该船当时载有 20 名船员。

警方击毙一名海盗，击伤五人，并将其余41人拘留。所有船员，其中大部分来自印度，均被释放。

诗巫 1 行动结束后不久，荣誉 25 就接到了电话。

“他们的海盗告诉我们的海盗，这艘船也会驶向你们，”汗回忆道。“小心。”

海盗们起锚返回杜尔杜拉。三天后，即9月28日，他们抵达并抛锚。

船员们在被囚禁的最后一晚睡下了。

凌晨两点，他们的睡眠突然被打断。海盗们看到了灯光。一艘船正在靠近。

船员们在甲板中央组成人墙。

海盗们用枪指着船员们的头长达两个小时。

这是一场虚惊。惊恐的船员们被送回了各自的铺位。

早上7点，他们再次被叫醒。又一艘船正在靠近。那是邦特兰警方的船。

十几名船员被带到甲板中央的走道上。海盗们脱掉上衣，将双手反绑在背后的船舷上。汗也在其中。

由亚西尔·汗获得

优素福被带到机舱。他启动了发动机。然后他又被带回甲板，看到船员们被绑在舷梯上。

枪声不断，子弹从机组人员头顶呼啸而过，持续了半个小时。

一名名叫菲基的印尼男孩是“荣誉25”号船员，他当时正在操作起重机，帮助逃跑的海盗将救生艇放到海里。

一个名叫阿拉布的海盗愤怒地冲着试图逃跑的同伙大喊大叫。他朝菲基的脚开了一枪。然后他走向被绑着的船员们，重新装填好AK-47步枪，扣动了扳机。

“他开启了连射模式，”汗说道。“他简直是在疯狂射击。”

他先是击中了二副卡什夫·乌默的头部和臀部，乌默当场死亡。随后，一颗流弹击中了另一名海盗的下巴。

那个海盗上了膛，向阿拉伯人还击。海盗之间的枪战持续了10分钟。被绑着、尖叫着、祈祷着的船员们被夹在中间。

摘自亚西尔·汗

汗的大腿中弹。有些人被弹片击中。另有四人被枪杀。

“我在船上看到了太多血迹，”汗说。“我从未见过如此惨烈的血腥场面。”

船长开始用起重机放下救生艇。优素福向进攻舰发出呼叫。

“请停止射击。他们已经杀死了五个人。如果你们不停止，他们会杀了我们所有人。”

海盗们乘船下水，然后扬长而去。

一艘小船驶近。七名警察登上了“荣誉号”。

由于船只受损严重，无法驶向岸边，因此海事警察将其拖至附近港口，以便船员接受医疗救治。

三个小时过去了。一艘船来了。伤员被抬上船，送往医院。

船返回后，“荣誉25”号的船员们抬走了他们的死者。