Aug 11 (Reuters) – A small cargo ship was attacked on Tuesday by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, killing three crew members, said two Yemeni coast guard sources and two military officials in the government.
Maritime security sources told Reuters a small cargo ship was believed to have been targeted in the Red Sea, but the fate of the crew was unclear.
If confirmed, the fatalities on the Tanzania-flagged Tihamah would be the first deaths in a Houthi strike on a ship since Middle East conflict was triggered by U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran at the end of February.
The Houthis declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea last month in response to what they described as a Saudi siege. Riyadh denies that it had besieged Yemen.
The Houthis have not yet claimed the attack, which Yemeni sources said killed two Pakistanis and one Indonesian person on the boat sailing from Salalah in Oman via Djibouti.
Attacks on ships in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait have increased uncertainty for shipping companies already hobbled by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
An average of 32 ships per day passed through the Bab el-Mandeb strait last week, Kpler data showed. Prior to the blockade an average of 50 ships per day transited the strait.
(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari in Aden, Jonathan Saul in London and Nerijus Adomaitis in OsloWriting by Nayera Abdallah and Nafisa EltahirEditing by Michael Georgy and David Goodman)
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