2 India-bound ships with Indian crew attacked by drones as maritime tensions soar

Two vessels that were bound for India and carrying Indian crew members were attacked by drones as maritime tensions escalated.

In the aftermath of the war between Israel and the Palestinian terror group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

A Gabon-flagged commercial oil tanker, MV Saibaba, with 25 Indian crew on board, came under a drone attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the southern Red Sea. No injuries were reported, the US military and Indian Navy officials said on Sunday.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the Gabon-flagged vessel, MV Saibaba, was targeted by a Houthi drone in the southern Red Sea. It earlier said the ship was an “Indian-flagged crude oil tanker”, but the Indian Navy on Sunday denied it. The ship was reportedly on its way to India.

Apart from MV Saibaba, another ship, MV Blaamanen, a Norwegian-flagged, owned, and operated chemical/oil tanker reported a near miss of a Houthi one-way attack drone with no injuries or damage reported, the CENTCOM said. It added a US warship, Laboon, responded to the distress calls from both ships from the drone attacks that occurred at 8 pm (Yemen time) on Friday.

The MV Chem Pluto, carrying around 20 Indian crew members, along with crude oil, was attacked by a drone over 200 nautical miles southwest of Gujarat’s Veraval. There were no casualties when the drone hit the vessel and a brief fire that broke out on board was extinguished.

The vessel, sailing under a Liberian flag, was carrying crude oil from Al Jubail port in Saudi Arabia to New Mangalore port, news agency PTI reported.

A Pentagon spokesperson told news agency Reuters that the vessel was Liberia-flagged, Japanese-owned, and Netherlands-operated chemical tanker, adding that the drone was “fired from Iran”. The spokesperson also said this was the “seventh Iranian attack on commercial shipping since 2021”.

Indian Navy warship INS Mormugao had reached the MV Chem Pluto last night and ascertained details of the attack on it. The Indian Coast Guard said its ship, Vikram, also reached the Israel-linked ship last night and they were expected to reach Mumbai by Monday (December 25), officials said.

The attacks on the India-bound ships came against the backdrop of Houthi rebels, who are backed by Iran, stepping up attacks on ships in the Red Sea amid the Israel-Hamas war. This has forced ships to change their routes and take a long detour through the southern tip of Africa, leading to increased time and costs.