New Delhi: The Indian Navy has said that it deployed its guided missile destroyer INS Visakhapatnam in the Gulf of Aden Friday in response to a Marshal Islands oil tanker’s distress call about a missile attack and a fire on board.
The oil tanker, MV Marlin Luanda, reportedly came under attack off the coast of Yemen and was set alight. The vessel had 22 Indians and one Bangladeshi on board but no injuries or casualties were reported.
The Gulf of Aden connects with both the Red Sea, which has been seeing a spillover of the Israel-Hamas war, and the Arabian Sea. After six hours of battling the fire along with the crew of MV Marlin Luanda, the Indian Naval fire-fighting team brought the fire under control.
In its statement, the Indian Navy said that it had deployed its Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defence (NBCD) team and firefighting equipment to help fire-fighting efforts on board the distressed vessel.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) — the official organisation that regulates and supervises the United Kingdom’s maritime trade operations in the Indian Ocean — said it got a report at 16:42 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) (around 10.12 pm Indian time) that a merchant ship had been hit by a missile and was on fire.
According to The Guardian Saturday, Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed their forces carried out an operation targeting what they described as the “British oil tanker” Marlin Luanda in the Gulf of Aden. But US Central Command, which confirmed the attack through a post on X, said that the vessel was sailing under the Marshal Islands’ flag.
Houthis Strike M/V Marlin Luanda Operating in the Gulf of Aden
On Jan. 26, at approximately 7:45 p.m. (Sanaa time), Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists fired one anti-ship ballistic missile from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and struck the Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker M/V… pic.twitter.com/Mw3Mg138cy
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) January 27, 2024
Several merchants have been coming under attack by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea — a key global shipping route. The attacks, which the Houthi rebels claim are in response to Israel’s ongoing offensive, have had an economic impact on exports because vessels now have to take a longer route.
As reported by ThePrint earlier, on 18 January, the INS Visakhapatnam responded to a distress call from the Red Sea after the Houthi launched a drone attack on a merchant vessel, MV Genco Picardy.
That vessel had at least nine Indians on board and the attack was a repeat of a similar attack on the MT Chem Pluto on 23 December.
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‘Profound concerns’
But this isn’t the first time that the Indian Navy has responded to SOS calls for distressed vessels. On 5 January, the Indian Navy’s marine commandos rescued the crew of a hijacked Liberian-flagged bulk carrier MV Lila Norfolk in the Arabian Sea. Of the 21 crew members on board, 15 were Indians.
The Indian Navy has 12 warships patrolling the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea in the wake of increased piracy and Houthi attacks.
In its statement on the attack on MV Marlin Luanda, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) — the UN intergovernmental organisation that promotes the interests of emerging economies in world trade — voiced “profound concerns over the escalating disruptions in global trade, particularly stemming geopolitical tensions affecting shipping in the Black Sea, recent attacks on shipping in the Red Sea affecting the Suez Canal and the impact of climate change on the Panama Canal”.
The statement, issued on 26 January, noted that the crisis in the Red Sea due to Houthi-led attacks disrupting shipping routes, “had added another layer of complexity” and said that major players in the shipping industry had temporarily suspended Suez transits in response.
“Notably, container ship transits per week had plummeted by 67 percent compared to a year ago, with container carrying capacity, tanker transits, and gas carriers experiencing significant declines,” the statement said.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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