A ship attacked by Yemen’s Houthi rebels has sunk in the Red Sea after days of taking on water, officials said Saturday.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government, as well as a regional military official, confirmed the ship sank.
According to the AP, the Rubymar is the first vessel to be fully destroyed as part of the Houthis’ campaign over Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The ship had been drifting northward after being attacked on February 18 in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial waterway linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, reported Reuters.
Meanwhile, the Iran-backed Houthis had claimed that the ship sank almost immediately after the attack.
Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, the new prime minister of Yemen’s internationally recognized government, called the ship’s sinking “an unprecedented environmental disaster”.
“It’s a new disaster for our country and our people,” he wrote on X. “Every day, we pay for the Houthi militia’s adventures, which were not stopped at plunging Yemen into the coup disaster and war.”
Earlier, the US military’s Central Command had warned the vessel’s cargo of fertilizer and fuel leaking from the ship which could cause ecological damage to the Red Sea.
Due to the sinking of the Rubymar, there may be more detours and greater insurance costs for ships using the channel, which might raise worldwide inflation and have an impact on assistance shipments to the area.
After over a month of bombings led by the US, the Houthi rebels are still able to carry out sizable attacks. This includes the assault on the Rubymar and the tens of millions of dollars downing of an American drone.
The Houthis have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014, expelling the government. Its fought a Saudi-led coalition since 2015 in a stalemated war.
