An India-flagged tanker reportedly carrying Saudi oil has sunk off the coast of Yemen in the Red Sea after it was hit by a projectile.
The Indian Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday condemned the attack on the India-flagged commercial vessel, MSV Faize Noore Oliya, which sank in the Red Sea, off the coast of Yemen on August 4, 2026.
Sarbananda Sonowal, India’s Minister of Ports, Shipping & Waterways, said the vessel had been hit by a projectile near Yemeni waters.
All seafarers, including 13 Indian nationals, have been rescued by the Yemeni Coast Guard after the vessel was hit by a projectile, capsized, and sunk.
“The continuing incidents of attacks on commercial shipping in the region are deeply worrisome,” India’s foreign ministry said.
“The targeting of commercial shipping in the region must end, and free and unimpeded navigation and commerce through the international waterways in the region, in keeping with international law, must be restored at the earliest,” it added.
The Red Sea and its Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint to the Arabian Sea have become a new theater of attacks on vessels after the Iran-aligned Houthis threatened to disrupt Saudi-linked shipments in the Red Sea. While the Houthis have been sparing China- and Russia-linked vessels regardless of the cargo, they have appeared to target Saudi-linked or owned tankers.
The Houthi threat hasn’t abated amid reports of U.S.-Iran talks, and more tankers laden with Saudi oil appeared to have made the transit through the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint in dark mode.
Since the Houthis announced they would attempt to choke off Saudi shipments, Saudi Arabia has re-routed part of its exports northward to Egypt and the Suez Canal, while the other vessels have increasingly gone dark while transiting the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to the south.
Meanwhile, traffic at the Strait of Hormuz remains subdued, with the trickle of traffic extending the period in which tanker owners are either using dark mode to transit the chokepoint, abandoning efforts to cross, or not risking transits at all.
Analysts at security and vessel-tracking firms told the BBC this week that the threats to shipping in the Gulf and the Red Sea have now escalated to the worst safety situation since the Iran war began.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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