Warplanes bombed two boats carrying 20 Indian crew members as the vessels traveled between Somalia and Yemen, India’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday, a day after the Yemeni coast guard said a Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemeni Shiite rebels bombed boats off the war-torn country’s coast.
Thirteen crew members are alive and seven are missing, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said in a statement. He said authorities are trying to gather more information. He didn’t elaborate on who may have carried out the attack.
Yemeni coast guard officials said Tuesday that a Saudi-led coalition attacked more than five boats off the Yemeni coast in airstrikes, the same day the Indian boats were bombed. Officials with the rebels, known as Houthis, said the boats were carrying fishermen and weren’t connected to them. It wasn’t immediately clear if the two incidents were the same.
Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition of mainly Gulf nations fighting the Houthis, who took control over the capital, Sanaa, last September, later spreading across Yemen.
The impoverished country is torn between the Houthis, allied with army units loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and forces loyal to exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia in March, hours before the Saudi-led coalition began its airstrikes against the Houthis.
The conflict has killed over 2,100 civilians, according to the United Nations.
All Yemeni officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief reporters.
