Yemen’s Houthi fighters claim they have hit and sunk UAE Navy vessel HSV Swift by a modified C802 cruise missile in the Bab al-Mandab strait off Yemen’s coast.
The UAE military on Saturday confirmed that one of its vessels was involved in an ‘incident’ and added that none of the crew had been hurt. It did not say whether the vessel sank or not.
“The coalition rescued civilians from a vessel targeted by Houthi militias, that was transferring medical aid to the city of Aden and evacuating wounded civilians for treatment,” Reuters reported the coalition saying in a statement on Saudi state news agency SPA.
Yemen’s Houthi fighters claimed on their sabanews.net website that the vessel ‘had been completely destroyed’, Al Jazeera reported.
The UAE is a member of the coalition fighting the Houthi rebels in Yemen
The vessel hit by missile fire is the hybrid catamaran HSV-2 Swift, privately owned and operated by Sealift Inc. and originally leased by the United States Navy Military Sealift Command. According to IHS Jane’s, the former U.S. Navy vessel was later operated by United Arab Emirates’ National Marine Dredging Company.
The video below supposedly shows the moment when the cruise missile is fired and hits the vessel.