{"id":838109,"date":"2026-10-23T15:40:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T19:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?p=838109"},"modified":"2026-10-23T13:51:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T17:51:19","slug":"india-says-14-indians-on-a-yacht-hit-near-yemens-zuqar-island-are-safe-after-the-houthis-blamed-saudi-arabia-for-the-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/838109","title":{"rendered":"India says 14 Indians on a yacht hit near Yemen’s Zuqar Island are safe, after the Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia for the strike"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Satellite<\/figure>\n

[file photo] Zuqar Island in the southern Red Sea, seen in an undated NASA Landsat 7 satellite image. Photo: NASA via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)<\/em><\/p>\n

India's embassy for Yemen said Friday that all 14 Indian nationals on a yacht that the Houthis say was hit near Zuqar Island in the southern Red Sea are reported safe and are around Hodeidah.<\/p>\n

"Reports suggest that all 14 Indian nationals are safe and located around Hodeidah in Yemen. We will continue to work for ensuring their well being," the embassy wrote on X early Friday. The message ended almost a full day of uncertainty that began on Thursday morning, when the Houthi military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said Saudi Arabia had attacked the boat.<\/p>\n

"The Saudi enemy is targeting an Indian yacht near Zuqar Island, carrying 14 people of Indian nationality, according to preliminary information," Saree wrote on X, as quoted by NDTV. He said Houthi forces were rescuing the people on board and called the attack "a reckless act" that threatens international shipping in the Red Sea. Saudi Arabia did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters, and the Saudi-led coalition has not said anything about the yacht. The claim spread quickly among Houthi supporters. "Saudi Arabia just targeted an Indian yacht near Zuqar Island, carrying 14 people of Indian nationality," wrote Ahmed Zaid, a Yemeni X user, in a post that was viewed more than 14,000 times by Friday.<\/p>\n

A different story came from the government side of Yemen's war. Fares Alhemyari, a Yemeni journalist who follows the war closely, wrote on X on Thursday afternoon that a strike had hit "a boat loaded with weapons" that was on its way "from the coast of an Arab country" to Zuqar Island, which is held by the Houthis. Earlier in the week, on October 20, The National, the Abu Dhabi newspaper, ran a video report titled "Saudi forces hit vessels carrying Houthi weapons." It is not clear whether Alhemyari was writing about the same boat the Houthis described, and none of the accounts could be independently confirmed.<\/p>\n

The Indian embassy itself moved carefully. On Thursday it said it had "seen reports regarding an incident involving 14 Indian nationals on board a yacht off the coast of Yemen" and would give all possible help. In the evening it said that "given the prevailing conflict situation exact information is not currently available" and that it had "reached out to different parties to establish circumstances and facts of the incident." It did not say who the yacht belonged to, what it was carrying or who fired on it. India is the world's third largest supplier of seafarers, with more than 300,000 sailors on ships around the world, and more than a dozen Indian seafarers have been killed in the Gulf and the wider region since the Middle East war began in February, Reuters reported. On Thursday India's foreign ministry also condemned the attacks on civilian and energy sites in Saudi Arabia as "unacceptable."<\/p>\n

Zuqar is the northernmost large island of the Zuqar and Hanish group, which sits north of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the narrow entrance to the Red Sea that ships must pass to reach the Suez Canal. The fighting between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition that backs Yemen's internationally recognized government has raged in these waters, close to Eritrea's coast, since the Houthis pushed toward the strait in September.<\/p>\n

On the coast near the strait, the Giants Brigades and the Homeland Shield Forces, which fight on the government side, said on Thursday that they had fully retaken the al-Aradi military camp, which overlooks Bab el-Mandeb, from the Houthis. The report was carried by many Yemeni accounts on X, among them Al-Mashhad Al-Yemeni, which cited Alhemyari and a military source in the field. The Institute for the Study of War said the report suggests Houthi fighters are still contesting ground south of Dhubab airport.<\/p>\n

Government forces also said they had carried out 780 strikes against Houthi targets in 24 hours across several fronts. The army spokesperson, Majed al-Nuzaili, said 512 Houthi fighters were "neutralized" and more than 330 vehicles destroyed or disabled, Arab News reported. The coalition said it shot down nine drones over Riyadh, Medina and the Eastern Province on Thursday, while Saree claimed attacks on the Saudi Defense Ministry, King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, Aramco sites in Yanbu and Abha International Airport, the Saudi Gazette and Xinhua reported.<\/p>\n

The fighting is also testing the region's trade. Akshay Anand, the group chief executive of the Saudi shipping company ABSA Al Barrak Group, told Arab News that the pressure around Bab el-Mandeb is a constant challenge, though he said Saudi Red Sea ports were still handling record cargo volumes. In Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said Egypt wants the Houthis to leave all the areas near Bab el-Mandeb they seized in September, and that it will keep looking for a political solution, BBC Amharic reported. Egypt's parliament is expected to vote on October 26 on sending military support to Saudi Arabia, Addis Standard reported.<\/p>\n

Sources<\/h4>\n