(Dubai) The crew of a ship damaged after an attack in the Red Sea by Houthi rebels off the coast of Yemen “has been evacuated by military personnel”, the British maritime security agency UKMTO announced on Friday.
The MV Tutor, hit by a drone on Wednesday, “was abandoned and drifting” east of Hodeida, a port city held by Yemeni rebels in the west of the country, added the British agency, without specifying which army belonged to the soldiers who evacuated the crew or whether they were part of the coalition set up by the United States to secure the Red Sea.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos pledged to help the Filipino sailors on board and transfer them to Djibouti with the help of the UKMTO, an agency controlled by the British Navy.
“To the Filipino sailors on board the MV Tutor that was bombed and who don’t know what to do right now, we are doing everything we can,” he said in a statement.
The Liberian-flagged merchant ship, belonging to a Greek company, was hit by a drone and a second time by “unidentified aerial projectile”, the central command of the US army said on Wednesday.
The incident occurs in a context marked by repeated attacks launched since November by the Houthis against merchant ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, disrupting traffic in this maritime area essential for world trade.
In power in a large part of war-torn Yemen since their capture of the capital Sanaa in 2014, these allies of Iran say they are acting in solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Israel is waging a war against Hamas after the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7 on Israeli soil.
Yemeni insurgents claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack, saying they used “a naval drone, aerial drones and ballistic missiles.”
On Thursday, UN special envoy Hans Grundberg warned of a resumption of hostilities following a lull in Yemen’s civil war.
“If the parties continue on the path of escalation, the question is not if they will return to escalation on the battlefield, but when they will do so,” he said during a meeting of the UN Security Council.
In addition to the attacks on ships, the Houthis this week arrested more than a dozen aid workers, including UN employees, accusing them of being part of a “US-Israeli spy network.”
Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, rejected the “scandalous allegations” and demanded their immediate release.
Last week, at least 18 fighters were killed in clashes between Houthis and Yemeni government forces in the southwest of the country, two military officials told AFP.
Meanwhile, a dispute between rival monetary authorities in rebel-controlled and government-controlled areas threatens to cut off Sanaa’s banks from international transactions, further worsening a tattered economy.
Among their most notable attacks, the Houthis stormed and hijacked a vehicle transporter, the Galaxy Leader, in November and turned it into a tourist attraction for propaganda purposes.
In March, the bulk carrier Rubymar, which was carrying thousands of tons of fertilizer, sank in the Red Sea after its hull was damaged by a Houthi missile strike.
Since its outbreak in 2014, the war in Yemen has killed hundreds of thousands of people and caused one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, according to the UN.
The conflict became international in 2015 with the entry onto the front of a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia, in support of the government of the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula.
