- Written by Tom Spender & Joshua Cheatham
- BBC News and BBC Verification
A Houthi missile attack on a cargo ship off Yemen's southern coast killed two crew members, U.S. officials said, marking the first fatality in a Houthi attack on a commercial vessel.
The Barbados-flagged True Confidence was abandoned and adrift with a fire burning inside, managers said.
It added that the collision occurred in the Gulf of Aden at around 9:30 a.m. Japan time.
The Houthis say their attacks are in support of Palestinians participating in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
An Iranian support group said in a statement that True Confidence's crew ignored warnings from the Houthi navy.
The British embassy in Yemen said the sailors' deaths were a “sad but unavoidable consequence of the Houthis' reckless firing of missiles at international shipping” and said the attack needed to be halted.
Six crew members were also injured, a US official told the BBC's US partner CBS.
A spokesperson for the ship's owner and manager said in a statement that the attack occurred about 50 nautical miles (93 kilometers) southwest of the Yemeni city of Aden.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said the True Confidence received a VHF radio call from a group calling itself the Yemeni Navy, telling it to change course.
Nearby vessels then reported a loud bang and heavy smoke.
The UKMTO said the True Confidence was damaged in the collision and that naval vessels from the US-led International Maritime Coalition were assisting the ship and its crew.
The EU's Maritime Safety Center for Africa (MSCHOA) also said rescue and salvage operations were underway.
A spokesperson for the ship's management said there was no information on the condition of the ship's crew of 20 sailors and three armed guards.
The Houthis claimed in a statement that the True Confidence was a “U.S. ship,” but a spokesperson said the ship “has no current ties to any U.S. entity.”
He said the True Confidence was owned by True Confidence Shipping SA, registered at a Liberian address, and operated by Greece's Third January Maritime.
However, it was previously owned by U.S.-based Oaktree Capital Management, the Associated Press reported. Oaktree declined to comment to The Associated Press.
The crew consisted of 20 people, including one Indian, four Vietnamese, and 15 Filipinos. Three armed security personnel were also on board, two from Sri Lanka and one from Nepal.
Tracking data showed the bulk carrier was sailing from Lianyungang, China, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, carrying a cargo of steel products and trucks, the spokesperson said.
The attack came after several gunfights between the Houthis and warships from the US-led coalition.
On Tuesday, the U.S. military shot down a ballistic missile and three drones fired from Yemen toward the destroyer USS Carney, followed by three anti-ship missiles and three maritime drones.
Meanwhile, on Monday, the Indian Navy helped put out a fire on the container ship MSC Sky II, which was hit by a missile and caused a small fire, but no one was injured, the operator said. .
The Belizean-flagged cargo ship Rubimar sank in the Red Sea on Sunday, two weeks after being hit by a Houthi missile attack. She became the first ship to sink since the Houthi offensive began in November.
The Rubimaa was near the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which connects the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea, when it was attacked. Her crew was rescued and the ship slowly began to take on water.
The ship was carrying 21 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which the US military claimed posed an environmental risk to the Red Sea.
Since mid-January, U.S. and British forces have countered drone and missile attacks on commercial ships transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, and attacked Houthi weapons and infrastructure in western Yemen. But so far the Houthis have not been deterred.