22 Indians onboard British oil tanker hit by Houthis, Navy assisting in rescue ops

Twenty-two Indians are onboard the British oil tanker, the Marlin Luanda, targeted by Houthis on January 26. The Indian Navy is assisting in fire fighting efforts.

The Navy said that its guided missile destroyer, INS Visakhapatnam, was deployed in the Gulf of Aden in response to a distress call from the oil tanker on the night of January 26.

“The fire fighting efforts onboard the distressed Merchant Vessel is being augmented by the NBCD team along with firefighting equipment, deployed by INS Visakhapatnam to assist the crew onboard the MV,” the Navy said in a statement.

The Navy confirmed that 22 Indians and 1 Bangladesh crew are onboard the ship targeted by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis.

The fuel tanker was operated on behalf of the trading firm Trafigura, and the company confirmed that a missile struck the Marlin Luanda as it transited the Red Sea. Along with the British oil tanker, a US warship, the destroyer USS Carney, was also attacked by the Houthi group.

This incident is also believed to be the biggest confrontation at sea between the Western forces and the Middle East in decades.

Also, this isn’t the first time that the Houthi group has attacked an oil tanker that had Indians aboard. On December 24, 2023, an oil tanker carrying 25 Indians was hit by a drone fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Red sea.

The Houthi group has been carrying out attacks on oil tankers since last November, and it said that it was doing so because of Israel’s military actions in Palestine.

After the attack in the Gulf of Aden, the UK government said that Britain and its allies “reserve the right to respond appropriately”.

“We are aware of reports that the M/V Marlin Luanda, a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker, has sustained damage from attack in the Gulf of Aden. Current reports suggest no casualties and nearby coalition vessels are on the scene. We have been clear that any attacks on commercial shipping are completely unacceptable and that the UK and our allies reserve the right to respond appropriately,” a UK government official said.

A Houthi military spokesperson had mentioned that their naval forces conducted an operation on the oil tanker, identifying the vessel as ‘British’. However, they have not yet acknowledged the attack on the USS Carney.