[Regnum] A merchant ship that caught fire after being attacked by unknown assailants off the coast of Yemen on June 12 appears to have sank in the Red Sea. Debris and traces of fuel were found in the water area. Details were provided by the British Maritime Trade Operations Office (UKMTO) of the British Navy.
The British maritime security company Ambrey reported an attack near the port of Hodeidah. It was established that the ship Tutor, owned by a Greek company, was hit. It was heading to India under the flag of Liberia.
After the attack, a fire started on the ship; for some time the captain reported on the situation. The ship was hit by three shells, before which it was fired upon from a small boat.
| Pirates or Houthis/other Iran catspaws? |
“The vessel is presumed to have sunk,” the British Navy wrote.
As Regnum reported, the Yemeni Houthis attacked a US Navy destroyer and two commercial ships Captain Paris and Happy Condor in the Red Sea. This was stated on June 16 by the military representative of the Ansar Allah movement, Yahya Saria.
On June 13, the US Central Command said that the Houthis attacked the Verbena commercial vessel, owned by Ukraine and flying the flag of Palau, with two anti-ship missiles. The crew of the cargo ship sent a distress signal, which was responded to by the Anna Meta, whose sailors evacuated the crew of the Verbena.
The Houthis began attacks on ships associated with Israel and its allies in the fall of 2023 after the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, in order to thus support the Palestinian Hamas movement. In January 2024, the United States and Great Britain began to launch retaliatory strikes against the positions of the Yemeni movement.