Wednesday March 6, 2024 {HMC} Two crew members have been killed in a Houthi missile strike on a cargo ship off southern Yemen, US officials say – the first deaths the group’s attacks on merchant vessels have caused.
The Barbados-flagged True Confidence had been abandoned and was drifting with a fire on board, managers said.
It was hit in the Gulf of Aden at about 09:30 GMT, they added.
The Houthis say their attacks are to support the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
In a statement, the Iran-backed group said the True Confidence’s crew had ignored warnings from Houthi naval forces.
The British embassy in Yemen said the sailors’ deaths were the “sad but inevitable consequence of the Houthis recklessly firing missiles at international shipping” and insisted the attacks had to stop.
Six crew members were also injured, a US official told the BBC’s US partner CBS.
The attack happened about 50 nautical miles (93km) south-west of the Yemeni city of Aden, a spokesman for the ship’s owners and managers said in a statement.
The True Confidence had been hailed over VHF radio by a group calling itself the “Yemeni navy” and told to change course, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency.
Nearby vessels then reported a loud bang and a large plume of smoke.
The UKMTO said the True Confidence was hit and suffered damage, and that naval vessels from a US-led international maritime coalition were supporting the ship and its crew.
The EU’s Maritime Security Centre-Horn of Africa (MSCHOA) also said that rescue and salvage operations were under way.
The ship managers’ spokesman said he had no information about the condition of the ship’s crew of 20 sailors and three armed guards.
The Houthis claimed in their statement that the True Confidence was an “American ship”, but the spokesman said the vessel had “no current connection with any US entity”.
The True Confidence is owned by True Confidence Shipping SA, which is registered to an address in Liberia, and operated by Third January Maritime Ltd in Greece, he said.
However it had previously been owned by US-based Oaktree Capital Management, AP reported. Oaktree declined to comment to AP.
It had a crew of 20, comprising one Indian, four Vietnamese and 15 Filipino nationals. Three armed guards – two from Sri Lanka and one from Nepal – were also on board.
The bulk carrier had been sailing to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia from Lianyungang in China, tracking data showed, and was carrying a cargo of steel products and trucks, the spokesman said.
The latest attack follows several exchanges of fire between Houthis and warships from the US-led coalition.
On Tuesday, US forces shot down a ballistic missile and three drones launched from Yemen at the destroyer USS Carney, followed by three anti-ship missiles and three sea drones.
Meanwhile, on Monday the Indian navy helped put out a fire on board the container ship MSC Sky II, which its operator said had been hit by a missile that caused a small fire and no injuries.
On Sunday, a Belize-flagged cargo ship, Rubymar, sank in the Red Sea two weeks after hit by missiles fired by Houthis. It was the first ship to have been sunk since the Houthi attacks began in November.
The Rubymar was near the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which connects the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea, when it was attacked. The crew was rescued and the vessel began slowly taking on water.
It was carrying a cargo of 21 tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, which the US military said presented an environmental risk in the Red Sea.
US and British forces have responded to the drone and missile attacks on merchant vessels passing through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden by striking Houthi weapons and infrastructure in western Yemen since mid-January. But so far the Houthis have not been deterred.
SOURCE BBC
