Yemen’s Houthis release vessels, crew seized in Red Sea

The three vessels and the 16 people on them had been detained a few miles off Uqban Island, off the western coasts of Yemen, on Sunday evening.

“The vessels and crew members that were seized and detained in Yemen have all been released,” South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

It said the ships included a South Korean tugboat and a drilling rig, and one Saudi-flagged tugboat.

Two South Koreans were among the crew, the statement said.

The Houthi movement has not yet commented on the statement.

It announced early on Tuesday that the Yemeni coastguard “is doing its job to determine whether it… belongs to the aggressors or to South Korea.”

“If it is for South Korea, they will be released after legal procedures… we assure everyone not to worry about the crew,” said the chairman of the Supreme Revolutionary Committee of Yemen, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi.

By “aggressors,” he was referring to Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies that have been waging war against Yemen since March 2015.

The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the Saudi-led war has claimed more than 91,000 lives over the past four and a half years.