An oil tanker burning for weeks in the Red Sea has been saved after it was attacked by Yemen’s Houthi rebels and threatened with a massive oil spill, a security firm said Friday.
sounion The waterway was a disaster-in-waiting, with 1 million barrels of crude oil being attacked by the Iranian-backed Houthis as part of their campaign over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and later sabotaged with explosives. Went. , It took months for salvage workers to tow the ship, extinguish the fire, and unload any remaining crude oil.
“Over three challenging weeks, fires were extinguished, cargo tanks were patched and pressurized with inert gas, and the ship was freed,” said private security firm Ambre, which helped lead the response with the European Naval Force and rescuers. Declared safe.” “In early October, she was towed north to Suez for the removal of her cargo, which has now been successfully completed.”
The US State Department had warned that this could lead to leakage sounion That would have been “four times the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster” in Alaska in 1989.
There was no immediate comment from the Houthis, who have held Yemen’s capital Sanaa for more than a decade and have been battling the Saudi-led coalition supporting the country’s exiled government for almost as long.
Houthis initially attack Greek-flagged positions sounion Tanker on 21 August with small arms fire, projectiles and a drone boat. A French destroyer operating as part of Operation Espides rescued her crew of 25 Filipinos and Russians, as well as four private security personnel, when they abandoned ship and took them to nearby Djibouti.
The Houthis later released footage showing that they had planted explosives on board sounion and ignited them in a propaganda video, something the rebels have done before in their campaign.
The Houthis have targeted nearly 100 merchant ships with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza began in October 2023. They seized one ship and sank two in the campaign, killing four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by the US-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, including Western military ships.
The rebels say they target ships belonging to Israel, the US or Britain to end Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, with some bound for Iran.
The pace of Houthi attacks has slowed in recent weeks, particularly involving ships at sea. However, they have continued to launch drones and missiles targeting Israel.