The chilling video of the Houthis hijacking the Galaxy Leader ship in the Red Sea
The Houthi rebels in Yemen released this Monday a video of the capture of the cargo ship Galaxy Leader in a military operation carried out on Sunday in the Red Sea in which they used a helicopter to land on the ship and take it to the Yemeni coast.
The images, broadcast by Al Masira television, close to the Houthis, showed how a helicopter painted with the flag of Yemen and Palestine landed on the ship, on which a dozen masked fighters armed with assault rifles descended.
When inspecting the ship, the assailants entered the cockpit where there were about four crew members, who raised their arms without resisting when they were threatened at gunpoint.
After taking control of the ship, about five motorboats guarded the vessel to direct it to an unspecified Yemeni port, according to the images, which did not show scenes of shooting or explicit violence.
The Houthis announced on Sunday the capture of the ship, which they claimed belongs to Israel, and stated that these types of operations are only directed against Israeli-flagged or owned ships.
The Galaxy Leader cargo ship, which transported vehicles, is owned by a British company, but is operated by the Japanese shipping company Nippon Yusen (NYK Line), which has detailed that its crew was made up of 25 sailors of Bulgarian origin at the time of the seizure. , Ukrainian, Filipino, Mexican and Romanian.
The ship was heading from India towards Turkey, sailing under the flag of the Bahamas and would be partially owned by Israeli magnate Rami Unger, which would have triggered the operation. Following the Houthis' announcement, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “strongly” condemned what it considered “an Iranian attack against an international ship,” but Tehran today rejected these accusations.
For its part, the Japanese Government condemned the capture of the freighter operated by a Japanese company and requested the release of the 25 sailors on the crew taken hostage in the incident.
The Houthis assured that they will continue with similar operations “against the Israeli enemy until the aggression against the Gaza Strip ceases and the atrocious crimes that continue to this moment cease” both in the Palestinian enclave and in the West Bank.
For his part, the high representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, assured this Monday that the hijacking of the cargo ship represents “a danger to international maritime security.”. The head of European diplomacy made these statements at the end of a meeting in the Jordanian capital, Amman, with the United Nations special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg.