Aerial view of a ship at sea.
Suriyapong Thongsawang | Second | Getty Pictures
Three fires blazed on a Greek-flagged oil tanker within the Purple Sea, the UK Maritime Commerce Operations mentioned on Friday, at some point after rescuers evacuated its crew within the wake of an assault by Yemeni Houthi militants.
The Iran-aligned Houthis, who management Yemen’s most populous areas, mentioned on Thursday that they’d attacked the Sounion oil tanker as a part of their 10-month marketing campaign towards industrial delivery to help Palestinians in the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The Houthis first broken the tanker on Wednesday with repeated assaults that prompted a fireplace and a lack of engine energy. A European warship later rescued her crew of 25. The uncrewed vessel was anchored between Yemen and Eritrea, a maritime safety supply instructed Reuters on Thursday.
On Friday, UKMTO mentioned in an advisory that it had obtained stories of three fires on the vessel, which “seems to be drifting.” Later within the day, the Houthis posted a video on social media that purportedly confirmed them setting the tanker on hearth.
The broken tanker, carrying 150,000 metric tons of crude oil, poses an environmental hazard, the EU’s Purple Sea naval mission Aspides mentioned.
“A possible spill might result in disastrous penalties for the area’s marine surroundings,” the Djibouti Ports & Free Zones Authority mentioned in a publish on the social media website X on Friday.
The biggest recorded ship-source spill was in 1979, when about 287,000 tonnes of oil escaped from the Atlantic Empress after it collided with one other crude provider within the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Tobago throughout a storm, based on Worldwide Tanker House owners Air pollution Federation.
The Sounion was the third vessel operated by Athens-based Delta Tankers to come back below Houthi assault this month.
The Houthis mentioned it attacked the tanker partially as a result of Delta Tankers’ violated its ban on “entry to the ports of occupied Palestine,” Houthi navy spokesman Yahya Saree mentioned in a televised speech.
“Delta Tankers is doing the whole lot it may to maneuver the vessel (and cargo). For safety causes, we’re not ready to remark additional,” the corporate mentioned in a press release on Friday.
