Dubai: A missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels set a Dutch-flagged cargo ship ablaze in the Gulf of Aden on Monday, officials said, wounding two mariners and forcing its crew to abandon the damaged vessel.
It was the most serious attack in the Gulf of Aden, some distance from the Red Sea where the Iranian-backed Houthis sank two vessels in July.
While the rebels did not claim the assault on the Minervagracht, they had threatened to strike ships as part of their campaign over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, particularly as Israel squeezes in on Gaza City in a new ground offensive.
Meanwhile, the Mideast also remains on edge after the United Nations reimposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme.
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The Minervagracht had been targeted on September 23 in an unsuccessful attack in the Gulf of Aden, which connects to the Red Sea via the Bab el-Mandeb Strait separating East Africa from the Arabian Peninsula. On Monday, a missile launch seen by some in Yemen apparently struck the Minervagracht.
Spliethoff, the ship’s owner, described the strike as “inflicting substantial damage to the ship.” A helicopter evacuated the ship’s 19 crew members, of which two were wounded, it added.
A European naval force operating in the region, known as Operation Aspides, said early Tuesday that the Minervagracht “is on fire and adrift” after the crew’s rescue. It identified the ship’s crew as coming from the Philippines, Russia, Sri Lanka and Ukraine, with one wounded and stable and another severely wounded and airlifted to Djibouti for medical care.
The French military’s Maritime Information, Cooperation and Awareness Center identified the Houthis as carrying out the attack.
The Houthis wait hours and even days to claim their assaults and have not yet done so.
The rebels have launched missile and drone attacks on over 100 ships and on Israel in response to the war in Gaza, saying they were acting in solidarity with the Palestinians.
However, the group’s past targets have had little or no connection to Israel. The US Navy-overseen Joint Maritime Information Centre earlier said that the Minervagracht had “no Israeli affiliations.”
The Houthi attack widens the area of the rebels’ recent assaults, as the last recorded attack on a commercial vessel in the Gulf of Aden before the Minervagracht came in August 2024.
Their attacks over the past two years have upended shipping in the Red Sea, through which about USD 1 trillion of goods passed each year before the war.
The Houthis stopped their attacks during a brief ceasefire in the war. They later became the target of an intense weekslong campaign of airstrikes ordered by US President Donald Trump before he declared a ceasefire had been reached with the rebels.
The Houthis sank two vessels in July, killing at least four on board, with others believed to be held by the rebels. They sank two others earlier in the campaign.
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