Somali pirates have killed five crew members of the hijacked oil tanker "Honor 25" before it was rescued by security forces, Reuters reported, citing authorities in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region.
Yesterday, authorities said they had rescued a second ship that had been hijacked in May.
The deaths aboard the oil tanker, flying the flag of the island nation of Palau, appear to be the first caused by Somali pirates in more than a decade.
The ship, with a crew of 17, was hijacked by pirates in April amid a surge in piracy in the region that experts have attributed in part to the fallout from the Iran war, including higher oil prices that have made tankers more attractive targets.
The Puntland Information Ministry said in a statement that a rescue mission had successfully freed the ship and captured 16 pirates.
"Before the operation began, the pirates on board the ship killed five crew members. Among those killed were three from Pakistan, one from Myanmar and one from India," it said. Four crew members - three Pakistanis and one Indian - were injured, the text also reported.
The Puntland Maritime Police said in a statement late last night that it had also rescued the oil tanker "Eureka", which was hijacked in May after its hijackers fled as police forces approached the vessel.
The two rescue operations bring the total number of ships freed to five out of six that were among the six hijacked by pirates off the Somali coast in late August.
A previous wave of piracy between 2008 and 2014 disrupted one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. It cost the global economy billions of dollars and resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in ransoms, Reuters notes.