Missile attack on cargo ship off Yemen wounds 2 and prompts crew to
abandon vessel
[September 30, 2025]
By JON GAMBRELL
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi
rebels set a Dutch-flagged cargo ship ablaze in the Gulf of Aden on
Monday, officials said, wounding two mariners and forcing its crew to
abandon the damaged vessel.
It was the most serious attack in the Gulf of Aden, some distance from
the Red Sea where the Iranian-backed Houthis sank two vessels in July.
While the rebels did not claim the assault on the Minervagracht, they
had threatened to strike ships as part of their campaign over the
Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, particularly as Israel squeezes in
on Gaza City in a new ground offensive. Meanwhile, the Mideast also
remains on edge after the United Nations reimposed sanctions on Iran
over its nuclear program.
The Minervagracht had been targeted on Sept. 23 in an unsuccessful
attack in the Gulf of Aden, which connects to the Red Sea via the Bab
el-Mandeb Strait separating East Africa from the Arabian Peninsula. On
Monday, a missile launch seen by some in Yemen apparently struck the
Minervagracht.
Spliethoff, the ship's owner, described the strike as “inflicting
substantial damage to the ship.” A helicopter evacuated the ship's 19
crew members, of which two were wounded, it added.
A European naval force operating in the region, known as Operation
Aspides, said early Tuesday that the Minervagracht “is on fire and
adrift” after the crew's rescue. It identified the ship's crew as coming
from the Philippines, Russia, Sri Lanka and Ukraine, with one wounded
and stable and another severely wounded and airlifted to Djibouti for
medical care.
The French military’s Maritime Information, Cooperation and Awareness
Center identified the Houthis as carrying out the attack.
The Houthis wait hours and even days to claim their assaults and have
not yet done so.
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In this Jan. 12, 2025, photo from Mark Prummel, the
Netherlands-flagged cargo ship Minervagracht is seen off Delfzijl,
the Netherlands. (Mark Prummel via AP)
The rebels have launched missile and drone attacks on over 100 ships
and on Israel in response to the war in Gaza, saying they were
acting in solidarity with the Palestinians.
However, the group's past targets have had little or no connection
to Israel. The U.S. Navy-overseen Joint Maritime Information Center
earlier said that the Minervagracht had “no Israeli affiliations.”
The Houthi attack widens the area of the rebels' recent assaults, as
the last recorded attack on a commercial vessel in the Gulf of Aden
before the Minervagracht came in August 2024.
Their attacks over the past two years have upended shipping in the
Red Sea, through which about $1 trillion of goods passed each year
before the war.
The Houthis stopped their attacks during a brief ceasefire in the
war. They later became the target of an intense weekslong campaign
of airstrikes ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump before he
declared a ceasefire had been reached with the rebels. The Houthis
sank two vessels in July, killing at least four on board, with
others believed to be held by the rebels. They sank two others
earlier in the campaign.
___
Associated Press writer Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands,
contributed to this report.
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