Red Sea: Houthis hit Greek-owned cargo ship Zografia

It was sailing under the flag of Malta - There are no injuries and the ship continues on its way to its destination

A cargo ship was hit by a Houthi rocket in the Red Sea, 76 miles north-west of Yemen.

It sailed under the flag of Malta and is Greek-owned , while according to reports there are no injuries and the 56,000 ton ship of the "VULCANUS TECHNICAL MARITIME" company continues its course towards its destination, Suez, as it has not suffered any damage affecting its seaworthiness.

It is noted that there are no Greeks among the crew of 24 people of the "Zografia" ship.

The Iran-backed Houthi militia group continues to attack commercial shipping, hitting days ago an American-owned cargo ship with a ballistic missile in defiance of a wave of US and UK strikes on Yemen.

The strike against the Marshall Islands-flagged Gibraltar Eagle container ship represented a widening of the theatre of war beyond the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. The strike hit the cargo hold of the ship and while it was thought to have caused no major damage, will add to fears that the US and UK strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen have not degraded the militia group’s ability to threaten commercial shipping.

Qatar became the latest major user of cargo ships to announce it will not send liquid gas through the Red Sea for the foreseeable future. The level of traffic was said to have dropped markedly overall since the US and UK strikes on Thursday.

The Houthis, an Iranian-backed Shia group that has been battling for control of Yemen for more than 20 years, say the more than 30 attacks on commercial shipping over the past six weeks are part of an effort to put pressure on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.

The Houthis’ chief negotiator, Mohammed Abdulsalam, said on Monday that the group’s position had not changed after the US-led strikes, and indicated that strikes would continue on ships heading to Israel: “Our position on the events in Palestine and the aggression against Gaza has not changed and would not change, neither after the strike nor after the threats.

“The attacks to prevent Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine are continuing.”

The Houthis say an Israeli ceasefire in Gaza would immediately lead to the free flow of ships through the Red Sea, and lift pressure on global supply chains.

The Houthis’ comparative success on Monday raises questions about whether the US-UK naval alliance off Yemen will have to mount a further series of strikes, or even consider liaising actively with ground troops from the UN-recognised Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) – the Saudi-UAE backed coalition government based in Aden.

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