On the evening of April 26, the Egyptian merchant vessel Sward was hijacked by armed men a few miles off the Somali coast. It was steered towards an anchorage near the port of Garacad in Puntland, a semi-autonomous state in north-eastern Somalia.
Over the following days, further armed men joined the Sward as well as an interpreter tasked with negotiating a ransom with the shipowner. At the time of writing, the ship remains under pirate control.
