A merchant ship was damaged in a drone attack in the Red Sea near Yemen on Sunday, two maritime security agencies said, while Iran-backed Houthi rebels announced a naval assault on the vital trade route.
Ships in and around the Red Sea have come under repeated attacks for months by Yemen’s Houthi rebels who say they are operating in support of Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), run by Britain’s Royal Navy, said the latest attack took place about 65 nautical miles (120 kilometers) west of the Yemeni port city of Hodeida.
“The owner of a merchant vessel has reported that it has been attacked by an unmanned aerial system (UAS), resulting in damage to the vessel,” the agency said in a bulletin.
It said the “ship is proceeding to its next port of call” and that no casualties were initially reported. “Authorities are investigating.”
British maritime security firm Embray said the ship was a “Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier”.
The Joint Maritime Information Centre (JMIC), working with a Western-led naval task force in the region, said this was the “second time the ship had been targeted” having previously been hit by missiles while transiting the Gulf of Aden.
“The ship was reportedly attacked while in transit in the Red Sea… Several crew members suffered non-life-threatening injuries that did not require immediate medical attention,” the centre said.
“JMIC has investigated and found that the ship was targeted because other ships of its company stop at Israeli ports.”
flooded ship abandoned
Later on Sunday, the UKMTO said it had received a distress call from a second ship off the south-east coast of Yemen which was “suffering from flooding that cannot be stopped”.
The UKMTO did not say what caused the incident.
“This forced the master and crew to abandon ship. They have been rescued by a support vessel,” the UKMTO said in an incident report, adding that the submerged vessel was “still drifting.”
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sari said in a statement on Sunday that rebel forces had targeted two ships, one in the Red Sea and the other in the Indian Ocean.
He said the UAS was used in a “second targeting operation” against a ship called the Transworld Navigator and that it was hit “directly.”
The second ship was hit by “multiple cruise missiles”.
On Saturday, the United States Central Command, which has carried out retaliatory strikes against Houthi targets for attacks on ships, said it had destroyed three of the group’s maritime drones in the past 24 hours.
“It was determined that these systems pose a threat to U.S., coalition forces, and merchant vessels in the region,” Central Command said.
It also said the rebels had fired three anti-ship missiles into the Gulf of Aden, but there were no reports of injuries or significant damage.
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