WASHINGTON – He bouquet filled with fertilizer that sank in the Gulf of Aden after a missile attack by the Houthi rebels of Yemen it’s a risk for the environment, the US military said on Saturday.
The Houthis, backed by Iran, claimed responsibility for the February 19 attack on the “Rubymar,” a Belize-flagged merchant ship operated by a Lebanese company, which was transporting fuel fertilizers.
Yemen’s government said Saturday that the ship sank.
“The approximately 21,000 tons of fertilizers based on ammonium phosphate sulfate the ship was carrying pose an environmental risk in the Red Sea,” US Central Command (Centcom) said on Saturday.
He also confirmed that the ship had “sank in the Red Sea after being hit” by an anti-ship ballistic missile last month.
“By sinking, the ship also poses a subsurface impact risk to other ships using the waterway’s busy shipping routes,” it added.
Commercial traffic is reduced
Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak, prime minister of the internationally recognized Yemeni government, described the Sinking of ship “unprecedented environmental disaster”
According to the International Monetary Fund, container shipping across the Red Sea has fallen by almost a third this year due to continued attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
The “Rubymar” had left the United Arab Emirates and was heading to the Bulgarian port of Varna. Her crew abandoned the ship and was able to be evacuated to safety after being hit by two missiles.
The Houthis have been carrying out attacks on ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November, which they justify in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel is waging war against Hamas in retaliation for the Palestinian movement’s unprecedented attack on October 7 on Israeli soil.
Source: With information from AFP
