By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: At least three crew members — two of them Pakistani — were killed and several others wounded on Tuesday when a cargo vessel carrying food supplies came under missile fire in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, in what would be the first fatal Houthi strike on shipping since the war between Iran and Israel erupted in February.
Yemen’s internationally recognised government said the vessel, named as the Tihamah, was hit by three ballistic missiles as it sailed through the strategic waterway separating the Horn of Africa from the Arabian Peninsula. The country’s transport ministry said the strikes set the ship ablaze and caused significant damage, killing the three Pakistani crew members and one Indonesian sailor. Four other crew members were injured, along with a member of the rescue team sent to help them.
The ministry went further than earlier reports from security sources, alleging that Houthi forces fired an additional missile at the Tihamah as rescuers tried to reach the crew, in what it called a deliberate attempt to disrupt the rescue operation and inflict further casualties. It described the assault as a “terrorist crime” that endangered maritime navigation and international trade, and said it formed part of an intensifying Houthi campaign against ports, civilian infrastructure and commercial vessels serving government-held areas of Yemen. Such attacks, the ministry warned, put food and consumer goods supplies at risk for millions of Yemenis living in territory controlled by both the government and the Houthis.
Accounts of the death toll varied through the day. A source with Yemeni government forces stationed in the port city of Mokha put the number of dead at five, while security sources cited separately said three crew members had been killed — two Pakistanis and one Indonesian. Ownership details were similarly unsettled: Yemen’s transport ministry described the Tihamah as Yemeni-flagged, while other reporting identified it as sailing under the Tanzanian flag with Egyptian owners and managers listed in shipping data. The Egyptian company named as owner and manager did not respond to requests for comment. The Houthis had not claimed responsibility for the attack by Tuesday evening, and there was no immediate comment from the group on the ministry’s allegation that rescuers had also been targeted.
Coastguard came under fire, security group says
Yemeni sources said that once the crew lost control of the burning vessel, it was approached by the Yemeni coastguard, which then came under fire, according to UK maritime risk consultancy Vanguard. UK Maritime Trade Operations, the Royal Navy-affiliated monitoring body, said it had received a report that a cargo vessel off the coast of al-Mokha had been struck by an unknown projectile, resulting in casualties. British maritime security firm Ambrey said the vessel was hit while at anchor northeast of Perim Island, close to the Yemeni coast, and confirmed it had left the government-held port of al-Mokha on Saturday. Ambrey added that the ship was not Saudi-owned or operated at the time of the strike.
The attack comes three weeks after the Houthis declared what they called a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, in response to what the group described as a Saudi siege of Yemen — an accusation Riyadh has denied.
Separate US strike hits vessel off Pakistan
Hours after the Bab al-Mandeb attack, a separate incident unfolded roughly 71 nautical miles off the coast of Pakistan, where the Panama-flagged container ship Vela Nova was struck by a missile while sailing into the Gulf of Oman, according to maritime security sources. The Wall Street Journal reported that the vessel was attacked by a US helicopter, which fired a Hellfire missile at its rudder after the ship attempted to evade an American blockade targeting Iran-linked shipping in the region. US Central Command had not commented on the incident by Tuesday evening.
If confirmed, the Vela Nova would be the twelfth vessel struck by US forces since the blockade was first announced in April, and the third since it was reimposed on 14 July. Charlie Brown, a senior adviser at the advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, which tracks Iran-linked tanker traffic, said the ship had recently made port calls in Mumbai and at Port Klang in Malaysia — stops also made by vessels with suspected Iran links. He said the disabling of the Vela Nova near the blockade line, following its Mumbai visit alongside those other ships, reflected the growing scrutiny now being applied to vessels suspected of involvement in Iran-related trade. UK Maritime Trade Operations confirmed separately that it had received a report of an incident involving a container ship.
Traffic through key waterways collapses
Tuesday’s attacks add to a sharp decline in traffic through some of the world’s most important shipping corridors. Passage through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the wider Red Sea has fallen by more than half compared with levels seen during the earlier wave of Houthi attacks on shipping between 2023 and 2025, and has dropped further still since the Houthis announced their blockade last month. According to data from analytics firm Kpler, an average of 32 ships passed through the strait each day last week, down from around 50 before the blockade was declared.
The disruption is even more pronounced in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway at the mouth of the Gulf through which much of the world’s oil supply passes. Just six vessels transited the strait on Monday, according to the data, compared with a ten-day average of roughly 11 and pre-war levels of between 130 and 140 ships a day.
Copyright © 2021 Independent Pakistan | All rights reserved
