The UAE said on Wednesday Yemeni Houthi forces had attacked a UAE vessel in a strategic Red Sea shipping lane off the coast of Yemen at the weekend and called the incident an “act of terrorism.”
Hundreds of Emirati soldiers in a Saudi-led coalition have been fighting Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthis, who control the capital, besides training Yemeni troops in the port of Aden to help rebuild a state loyal to internationally recognized President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
The Foreign Ministry identified the vessel as the HSV-2 Swift, a high-speed catamaran which it said had been chartered from the Abu-Dhabi-based National Marine Dredging Company.
It said there were injuries among civilian crewmen of the vessel. The coalition rescued its civilian passengers. The ministry did not say how many were wounded in the Friday night attack but said they were receiving treatment in the UAE. It said the ship is “civilian” and “does not have any military capability,” although the vessel has previously been leased by the US Navy and operated with a mixed military-civilian crew.
“The targeting of the civilian ship in an international channel has serious implications for freedom of navigation, and is an act of terror,” the UAE Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency WAM, without elaborating.
The UN on Wednesday condemned the attack on the vessel and said it took threats to shipping around Bab Al-Mandeb “extremely seriously.”
The Security Council stressed the need for exercise of freedom of navigation in and around the strait.
The ministry condemned the “heinous attack” which it said had “serious repercussions for the freedom of navigation.”
The UN Security Council too strongly condemned the attack in a statement on Tuesday.
“The members of the Security Council take threats to shipping around Bab Al-Mandab, a strategically important shipping passage, extremely seriously,” the statement said.
“The members of the Security Council called for such attacks to cease immediately and urged necessary steps to be taken to de-escalate the situation.”

Source: Arab News