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Four sailors were confirmed dead on Wednesday after Yemen’s Houthi rebels hit a cargo ship in the Red Sea, marking the most lethal attack in the Iran-backed militants’ campaign against vessels in the strategic waterway.
Six out of 25 crew members have been rescued from the Red Sea after Monday’s attack on the Liberia-flagged Eternity C cargo ship, according to the EU’s Aspides naval mission, which protects commercial vessels in the Red Sea. The search for the remaining 15 crew members continues.
The attack, combined with one on a Greek-owned cargo ship at the weekend, marks a revival of the Houthis’ campaign against commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Both ships have sunk after the strikes.
The militants, who claimed responsibility for both attacks, paused their strikes at the end of last year after they had caused a surge in shipping and insurance costs and forced many large companies to divert cargoes around Africa.
Protecting commercial shipping through the strategic waterway was the goal of a 52-day campaign launched by the US against the Houthis this spring. The two sides agreed to an Omani-brokered ceasefire on May 6.
The strikes on the Eternity C, which is likely to have killed more people than all the Houthis’ previous attacks combined, took place 50 nautical miles west of the Yemeni port of Hodeidah, according to the UK’s Maritime Trade Operations Office.
In scores of attacks during 2023-24, the Houthis had sunk two ships, set fire to another three and killed four crew members.
The earlier attack on the Magic Seas “was totally unexpected because lately things have quietened down as far as attacks on commercial ships are concerned”, Michael Bodouroglou, chief executive of Greece’s Stem Shipping, told the Financial Times.
The entire crew of the Magic Seas was rescued after it was hit. Israel struck Yemeni ports soon after that attack.
The Houthis say they are targeting commercial shipping in support of Gaza’s Palestinians. Their first attack on a ship in November 2023 took place after Hamas’s attack on Israel the previous month that triggered the current conflict in Gaza.
The militants paused their campaign in December as Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas negotiated a ceasefire that lasted from January to March.
The Houthis said in a statement that the Eternity C was targeted because it was bound for Israel, and was sunk by an unmanned boat and six missiles. It claimed “special forces from the Yemeni navy” had rescued a number of the ship’s crew.
Robert Peters, an associate director at maritime risk management group Ambrey, which is involved in the rescue operation, said: “The Houthis have publicly claimed to have rescued people, but we haven’t seen evidence of that. We hope they have, of course.”
The Houthis added: “Our operations continue to target the depth of the Israeli entity in occupied Palestine, as well as to prevent Israeli navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas and to disrupt Umm al-Rashrash (the Arabic name for Israel’s Eilat port) until the aggression on Gaza stops and the siege is lifted.”
The rebels did not offer an explanation for why they had restarted their campaign.
At least three crew members of the Eternity C are known to have been already dead when the crew abandoned the ship, while another was too badly injured to leave the vessel, according to one maritime security expert.
