Indian warship INS Kochi with marine commandos on board was tailing the Maltese-flagged merchant vessel since soon after it was seized

NEW DELHI: One of the 18 sailors on board the hijacked merchant vessel Ruen was on Monday transferred to Indian stealth destroyer INS Kochi for medical assistance after he was injured, officials aware of the matter said on Tuesday.

The sailor was treated on board and is now being taken to a shore-based medical facility for further evaluation, they added.

“The pirates allowed the sailor to be evacuated from Ruen after he was injured. He needed urgent medical attention. He is being taken to a shore-based hospital,” said one of the officials, who asked not to be named. Details of how the sailor, a Bulgarian, was injured were not immediately available.

The Indian warship with marine commandos on board was tailing the Maltese-flagged merchant vessel that was seized by unknown attackers in the Arabian Sea on December 14. Ruen was first located by an Indian Navy P-8I maritime patrol aircraft on December 15, while the warship intercepted it a day later.

Ruen relayed a distress call to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), the position reporting and emergency incident response interface with merchant ships at sea, on December 14, and the company managing the vessel reported that it believed the crew was no longer in control.

At the time, Ruen was around 680 nautical miles east of Bosaso, the commercial capital of Somalia’s breakaway Puntland region, according to a UKMTO security notification.

The bulk carrier is managed by Bulgarian shipping company Navigation Maritime Bulgare (Navibulgar). Ruen’s crew are from Bulgaria, Angola and Myanmar.

The Ruen incident has put piracy in the Arabian Sea back in the spotlight. Pirate attacks in the region peaked between 2008 and 2013 but had steadily declined thereafter because of the concerted efforts of the multi-national maritime task force operating in the region.

The region accounted for almost 700 pirate attacks during 2008-13, but the figure nosedived to a mere 16 during 2014-19, according to EUNAVFOR data. The December 14 incident was the first in the last three years. The EUNAVFOR figures cover all attacks mounted by suspected pirates including the ones repelled, aborted and those leading to ships landing in pirate hands and crews being taken hostage.

The Indian Navy has been deployed in the Gulf of Aden for more than 15 years.

At any given time, one Indian warship has been carrying out round-the-clock anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden since October 23, 2008, to protect Indian sea-borne trade, instill confidence in the seafaring community and act as a deterrent for pirates.

So far 107 Indian warships have been deployed in the Gulf of Aden to ensure safe passage of Indian-flagged merchant vessels and they have thwarted scores of piracy attempts and safely escorted thousands of ships with tens of thousands of Indian sailors.

Meanwhile, the naval chiefs of several countries with stakes in the strategic Indian Ocean region on Tuesday kicked off a key conclave in Thailand where they will discuss ways to step up maritime cooperation, address challenges in the vast expanse and strengthen its security architecture.

The four-day Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) in Bangkok comes at a time when the region is facing an array of security challenges, including Houthi militia targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea after the Israel-Hamas conflict began on October 7, and the apparent resurgence of piracy.

The Iran-backed Houthi rebels have declared their support for Hamas. Several shipping companies have suspended their operations in the Red Sea following the Houthi attacks.

Indian Navy chief Admiral R Hari Kumar is attending the symposium, a voluntary initiative that seeks to enhance maritime cooperation among navies of the littoral states of the Indian Ocean region. The IONS grouping consists of 25 member countries and eight observers.

The theme of the IONS’s 8th edition is Blue Economy: Ways Forward for Sustainable Development of IONS Member States. Conceived by the Indian Navy and held biennially, India hosted the maiden edition of IONS in 2008.

IONS seeks to attain mutually beneficial maritime security outcomes in the region through cooperation of all member countries in determining remedies relevant to regional maritime security.