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At least six people were killed on Tuesday after suspected strikes by Iran-backed Houthi rebels hit a cargo vessel near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait off Yemen's southern coast, according to the country's coastguard.
The vessel, identified as the Tihamah, was hit in what the coastguard described as an initial salvo before a second strike later struck rescue workers attempting to evacuate the ship.
The attacks are the latest in a series of deadly strikes on shipping near the entrance to the Red Sea since the Houthis announced a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia last month.
The coastguard, which operates under Yemen's internationally recognized government, said four sailors aboard the Tihamah were among the dead, along with two members of the forces sent to evacuate the vessel. Ten people were injured across the two strikes, the coastguard said.
The first strike, the coastguard said in a statement, "caused a fire to break out aboard the vessel and inflicted extensive damage, in addition to causing deaths and injuries among its crew," including three Pakistani nationals and one Indonesian national who were killed.
A second strike then hit the site of the rescue operation itself. "The attack struck the site of the rescue operation and resulted in deaths and injuries among the forces participating in the response operation," the coastguard added.
Yemen's transport ministry, in a separate statement issued hours before the coastguard's, put the death toll slightly lower, at four.
The ministry said it "held the Houthi terrorist militias fully responsible for the deaths, injuries and damage inflicted on the commercial vessel 'Tihamah' as well as for the serious consequences resulting from these attacks."
A Houthi-aligned media outlet later reported that the group's forces had targeted a ship in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait on Tuesday, saying it was carrying Saudi military equipment. The Houthis themselves issued no official comment on the incident.
The strikes come weeks after a years-long truce between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed government collapsed, as fighting flared between Iran and the United States.
The breakdown of the 2022 United Nations-backed accord coincided with the Houthis' announcement of a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia, during which the group has struck Saudi tankers in the Red Sea and targeted the kingdom's oil infrastructure, a campaign it has run alongside Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
The Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a narrow chokepoint between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and is one of the world's busiest shipping corridors, carrying a significant share of global container traffic between Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
Yemen has been gripped by civil war since 2014, when the Houthis, who are backed by Iran, seized the capital, Sanaa, prompting a Saudi-led military coalition to intervene on behalf of the internationally recognized government.
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