Rescuers pulled six crew members alive from the Red Sea on Wednesday and 15 were still missing from the second of two ships sunk in recent days in attacks claimed by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi militia after months of calm.
Four of the 25 people aboard the cargo ship were killed before the rest of the crew abandoned the vessel, which sank on Wednesday morning after being attacked on Monday and Tuesday, sources at security companies involved in a rescue operation said.
The six seafarers who were rescued had spent more than 24 hours in the water, they said.
The Houthis said on Wednesday they had sunk the cargo ship.
“The Yemeni Navy responded to rescue a number of the ship’s crew, provide them with medical care, and transport them to a safe location,” the group’s military spokesperson said in a televised address.
The Houthis claimed responsibility for a similar attack on Sunday targeting another vessel. All crew members were rescued before it sank.
“These vessels have been attacked with callous disregard for the lives of innocent civilian seafarers and as an inevitable but terrible consequence, seafarers have been killed,” leading shipping industry associations said in a joint statement on Wednesday.
“This tragedy illuminates the need for nations to maintain robust support in protecting shipping and vital sea lanes.”
Rescue Search
Both of the ships that were attacked flew Liberia flags and were operated by Greek firms. Some of the sister vessels in each of their wider fleets had made calls to Israeli ports in the past year, shipping data analysis showed.
“We will continue to search for the remaining crew until the last light,” said an official at Greece-based maritime risk management firm Diaplous.
The EU’s Aspides naval mission, which protects Red Sea shipping, confirmed in a statement that six people had been pulled from the sea.
The number of daily sailings through the narrow Bab al-Mandab strait, at the southern tip of the Red Sea and a gateway to the Gulf of Aden, numbered 30 vessels on July 8, from 34 ships on July 6 and 43 on July 1, according to data from maritime data group Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
Oil prices rose on Wednesday, maintaining their highest levels since June 23, also due to the recent attacks on ships in the Red Sea.
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Source: Reuters
