Indian Navy said on Tuesday it had freed a vessel, carrying at least 19 Pakistanis, that had been hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia in the latest attack against ships in the Indian Ocean.

It was the second operation from the Indian navy as they had freed an Iranian fishing vessel on Monday from the same waters.

A spokesperson of the Indian Navy posted on X that the warship INS Sumitra successfully concluded another anti-piracy operation and rescued a vessel with 19 Pakistani national crew members from 11 Somali pirates. The vessel was hijacked by armed Somali pirates off the east coast.

“This rescue of hijacked vessels, through swift, persistent and relentless efforts by Mission deployed Indian navy warship in the Southern Arabian Sea approx 850 nm West of Kochi, also prevents misuse of Fishing Vessels as Mother Ships for further acts of Piracy on Merchant Vessels,” said a spokesperson.

Yemen’s Houthis rebels launched scores of the attack in Red Sea and Gulf of Aden targeting Israeli-linked vessels in response to Israel’s military offensive against the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza.

International naval forces have been diverted north from the Gulf of Aden in the Red Sea sparking fears that pirates will exploit the security gap, with the first successful case of Somali piracy since 2017 recorded in December.

“Seychellois special military forces boarded the boat with utmost courage to take complete control of the vessel and rescue our Sri Lankan brothers,” the presidency said in a statement.

Colombo’s navy reported a hijacking at the weekend, saying that Somali pirates had seized the Lorenzo Putha-4–4 on Saturday, some 840 nautical miles southeast of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu.

The chief of the Seychelles defence forces, Brigadier Michael Rosette, said that “Seychellois authorities were informed of the attack on Saturday.”

“The boat is on its way to (the capital) Victoria or it will arrive at the port tomorrow,” he added.

It was not immediately clear if the vessel freed by the Seychelles forces was the Lorenzo Putha-4.

Pirate attacks off the Somali coast peaked in 2011 – with the gunmen launching attacks as far as 3,655 kilometres (2,270 miles) from the Somali coast in the Indian Ocean – before falling off sharply in recent years.

Last month, Somali pirates hijacked the bulk carrier MV Ruen.

The Bulgaria-owned and Malta-flagged vessel was seized by Somali pirates 380 nautical miles east of the Yemeni island of Socotra on December 16.

The pirates, who released one injured sailor into the care of the Indian navy, took the MV Ruen and its remaining 17 crew members to Somalia’s semi-autonomous state of Puntland.

Additional output from AFP.