U.K.-Owned Ship Hit By Houthi Missile Sinks

"A British-owned ship struck on Feb. 18 by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi forces has sunk into the Red Sea, U.K. and Yemen officials said on Saturday, threatening to cause an environmental disaster with its cargo of fertilizer.

A Houthi missile strike had blown a hole in the cargo vessel, Rubymar, which was shipping 22,000 metric tons of Saudi fertilizer to Bulgaria.

That evening, the crew abandoned the vessel, flagged in Belize, and it vanished into the sea late Friday after taking on water for two weeks.

The Houthis have carried out more than 60 attacks in the Red Sea region, upending the shipping industry's ability to travel through one of the world's busiest commercial waterways, which connects Asia to Europe and beyond through Egypt's Suez Canal.

The U.S. and its allies have sent warships to the Red Sea, and the U.S. and the U.K. have conducted airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen to deter the group from more attacks on the shipping industry.

But the Houthis have proved resilient, saying they will continue to attack what they say are ships connected to Israel in response to its invasion of Gaza, though many of the vessels have no connection to Israel.

Cleaning up any damage to the Red Sea and its coastal areas from the Rubymar's fertilizer cargo will be complicated by the continued threat from the Houthis.

"There won't be anyone to help under missile threat," said Ami Daniel, chief executive of maritime artificial-intelligence provider Windward.

Even before the Rubymar was lost, the attack on the ship had caused an 18-mile oil slick, according to the U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for U.S. military operations in the Middle East. Roy Khoury, chief executive of Blue Fleet Group, the ship-management company operating the ship in Beirut, said he had been struggling to bring salvaging companies to tow or at least repair it because they were concerned about operating in a war zone.

Ahmed Bin Mubarak, prime minister of the internationally recognized Yemeni government in Aden, which has been engaged in a war with the Houthis for a decade, said on X that the environmental disaster caused by the fertilizer cargo sinking "threatens the lives of our people and generations for decades."" [1]

That is nonsense. Fertilizer is good for sea ecosystem.

British are bombing Houthi. Houthi are paying back.

British are showing off with missiles in Ukraine. Now they are getting the same. Nothing good will come of those missiles.

 

1. World News: U.K.-Owned Ship Hit By Houthi Missile Sinks. Faucon, Benoit.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 04 Mar 2024: A.18.