A ship has caught fire in the Gulf of Aden off Yemen after being struck by a projectile, the British military said, with one report suggesting its crew was preparing to abandon the vessel.
The incident on Saturday comes as Yemen’s Houthi rebels have maintained their military campaign of attacking ships through the Red Sea corridor in solidarity with Palestinians under fire in Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.
The Houthis did not immediately claim an attack, though it can take them hours or even days to do so.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) a centre issued an alert about the vessel, describing the incident as taking place some 210km (130 miles) east of Aden.
“A vessel has been hit by an unknown projectile, resulting with a fire,” the UKMTO said. “Authorities are investigating.”
The maritime security firm Ambrey described the ship as a Cameroon-flagged tanker that issued a distress call as it passed about 60 nautical miles (equivalent to 110km) south of Yemen’s Ahwar while en route from Sohar, Oman, to Djibouti.
It said radio traffic suggested the crew was preparing to abandon ship, and a search-and-rescue effort was under way.
Ambrey said the tanker was not believed to be linked to the target profile of Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis.
The group has launched numerous attacks on vessels in the Red Sea since 2023, targeting ships they deem linked to Israel or its supporters.
The attacks have disrupted trade flows through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, one of the world’s busiest shipping routes.
But no attacks have been claimed by the rebel group since the ceasefire began in Gaza on October 10.
The rebels’ most recent attack hit the Dutch-flagged cargo ship Minervagracht on September 29, killing one crew member on board and wounding another. The Houthi campaign against shipping has killed at least nine mariners and seen four ships sunk.
Israel has repeatedly struck what it says are Houthi targets in Yemen in recent months, killing dozens of Yemeni civilians. The Houthis have fired missiles towards Israel, most intercepted, but some breaking past Israel’s much-vaunted US-supplied air defences and causing injuries and disruptions at airports.
On Thursday, Israel claimed responsibility for killing the Houthi military’s Chief of Staff Muhammad Abd al-Karim al-Ghamari.
The Houthis said in a statement that the conflict with Israel had not ended and that Israel will “receive its deterrent punishment for the crimes it has committed”.
In August, Israel said it targeted senior figures from the group, including al-Ghamari, in air strikes on the capital Sanaa that killed the prime minister of Yemen’s Houthi-run government and several other ministers.
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