Two crew members have been killed in a Houthi missile strike on a cargo ship off southern Yemen, US officials say – the first deaths the group’s attacks on merchant vessels have caused.
The Barbados-flagged True Confidence had been abandoned and was drifting with a fire on board, managers said.
It was hit in the Gulf of Aden at about 09:30 GMT, they added.
The Houthis say their attacks are to support the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
In a statement, the Iran-backed group said the True Confidence’s crew had ignored warnings from Houthi naval forces.
The British embassy in Yemen said the sailors’ deaths were the “sad but inevitable consequence of the Houthis recklessly firing missiles at international shipping” and insisted the attacks had to stop.
Six crew members were also injured, a US official told the BBC’s US partner CBS.
The attack happened about 50 nautical miles (93km) south-west of the Yemeni city of Aden, a spokesman for the ship’s owners and managers said in a statement.
Following the attack, Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV reported on Wednesday evening that two US-led air strikes had targeted the international airport in the Houthi-controlled Red Sea port city of Hudaydah.
The True Confidence had been hailed over VHF radio by a group calling itself the “Yemeni navy” and told to change course, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency.
Nearby vessels then reported a loud bang and a large plume of smoke.
The UKMTO said the True Confidence was hit and suffered damage, and that naval vessels from a US-led international maritime coalition were supporting the ship and its crew.
The EU’s Maritime Security Centre-Horn of Africa (MSCHOA) also said that rescue and salvage operations were under way.
The ship managers’ spokesman said he had no information about the condition of the ship’s crew of 20 sailors and three armed guards.
The Houthis claimed in their statement that the True Confidence was an “American ship”, but the spokesman said the vessel had “no current connection with any US entity”.
A US State Department spokesperson said Washington would continue to hold the Houthis accountable for their attacks and called on governments around the world to do the same.
“The Houthis have continued to launch these reckless attacks with no regard for the well-being of innocent civilians who are transiting through the Red Sea and now they have unfortunately and tragically killed innocent civilians,” Matthew Miller said.
The True Confidence is owned by True Confidence Shipping SA, which is registered to an address in Liberia, and operated by Third January Maritime Ltd in Greece, he said.
However it had previously been owned by US-based Oaktree Capital Management, AP reported. Oaktree declined to comment to AP.
