The death toll from a missile attack on a Yemeni commercial vessel in the Bab al-Mandab Strait has risen to six, with 10 others injured, Yemen’s coastguard said on Tuesday.
The dead included four crew members – three Pakistani and one Indonesian national – as well as two members of the Second Naval Brigade of the Yemeni armed forces, the coastguard said in a statement carried by Yemen’s Satellite Channel.
Seven crew members, two coastguard personnel and one member of the Second Naval Brigade were injured, the statement said.
The coastguard, working with armed forces rescue teams, evacuated the dead and injured and rescued several crew members, according to the statement.
The Tahama had 11 crew members on board, all Pakistani or Indonesian nationals.
The coastguard said the vessel was repeatedly targeted by Houthi missiles, causing a fire to break out on board and inflicting extensive damage.
The Iran-backed group has so far not claimed responsibility for the attack.
According to the Yemeni Transport Ministry, the Tahama had been carrying food supplies when it came under attack on Tuesday morning.
The ministry condemned the targeting of civilian commercial vessels, ports and maritime facilities as “a flagrant violation of international law and international conventions and rules governing the safety and security of maritime navigation.”
The Houthis seized large parts of Yemen, including the capital Sana’a, in 2014, plunging the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country into civil war.
They have since been fighting the internationally recognized government, which is backed by Saudi Arabia.
The attack comes amid rising tensions in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, one of the world’s most strategically important maritime corridors that connects the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea.