A.P. Moller-Maersk, one of the world’s largest shipping companies, reported that its containership Maersk Gibraltar was targeted by a missile while en route from Salalah, Oman, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Fortunately, the crew and vessel were reported safe.
“At this time, we are still working to establish the facts of the incident. The safety of our crew and vessel is our top priority and all possible security measures are being taken to ensure we remove them from harm’s way,” Maersk said in a statement.
The missile attack took place near the Bad al-Mandab Strait, a strategic waterway that connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden where Yemen’s Houthis have been targeting ships purportedly linked to Israel amid the Israel-Hamas war.
“The recent attacks on commercial vessels in the Bad al-Mandab Strait are extremely concerning. The current situation puts seafarer lives at risk and is unsustainable for global trade.
“As it cannot be solved by the global shipping industry on its own, we call on political action to ensure a swift de-escalation,” the company said.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said it received report from a ship’s Master reporting an explosion approximately 50 meters off the vessel’s port quarter. The report followed an previous report a few hours earlier of an entity claiming to be the Yemeni Navy ordering the vessel to alter course to Yemen. UKMTO does not identify ships in its reports so it’s unclear if the report is related to the attack on the Maersk Gibraltar.
The reports are consistent with previous attacks carried out by Yemen’s Houthi militant group in the region.
The Hong Kong-flagged Maersk Gibraltar is on long-term charter to Maersk and deployed on the ME2-service between Europe and the Middle East. It has a capacity of 10,100 twenty-foot containers (TEU).
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