Indian media sources reported on Thursday that an Indian Navy vessel responded to a distress signal issued by another ship, flying the flag of the Marshall Islands, which had been attacked by a drone.
The international news agency ANI stated that the distress call came from the ship “MV Jinko Bacardi” late on Wednesday evening.
Tensions in the Red Sea have been on the rise since last November when Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah group threatened to prevent Israeli ships or those carrying Israeli cargo from passing through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea in solidarity with the Gaza Strip, which has been under continuous Israeli aggression for over 100 days, resulting in the martyrdom of more than 24,000 Palestinians and injuring over 60,000 others, most of whom are children and women.
The tensions escalated when the United States and Britain launched missile attacks on Houthi positions in Yemen, in what they called a response to threats to navigation in the Red Sea.
In December of last year, the United States announced the formation of the Prosperity Guardian coalition with the participation of several countries to curb Houthi attacks.
Exporters stated that 95% of the ships have changed their course to the route around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of the African continent, which has increased the travel distance from India from 4,000 to 6,000 nautical miles and extended the duration of the journeys from 14 to 20 days since the Houthi militants began attacking ships in November 2023.
