Yemen’s Houthis release sailors captured after attack on ship in July

Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Wednesday released 11 sailors captured after a July attack on the cruise ship Eternity Sea. red seaAn attack that killed four people on board and sank the ship.

Iranian supported HouthisOman has detained the sailors, who were flying to the sultanate, said via its Al-Masirah satellite news channel, which targets ships during the Israel-Hamas war.

Oman later said it had found 11 sailors – all from India philippines – “In preparation for their return to their home countries.” However, the Houthis later released photographs of only 10 sailors. It was unclear why the 11th release was not shown.

A jet of the Royal Oman Air Force landed in Sanaa on Wednesday yemeni The capital has been held by rebels for more than a decade, according to flight-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press. Following the Houthi announcement, the aircraft was tracked leaving Yemeni airspace.

Oman later published photographs of him being welcomed by Filipino and Indian diplomats upon his arrival in Muscat, the capital of the Sultanate.

The Philippines said on Tuesday it expected nine Filipino sailors captured by the Houthis following the attack to be released. The State Department in Manila described the sailors as “taken hostage by the Houthis” following the attack, something the US government had also previously said.

The Houthis did not immediately provide information on the nationalities of those released. It described his forces as rescuing people after abandoning the crippled ship after the attack. It argued that the people “spent five months as guests, not prisoners.”

The Houthis have targeted more than 100 ships with missiles and drones in their campaign, sinking four ships. At least nine sailors have been killed in the attacks, with a crew member aboard the Minervagrucht, one of the ships targeted, dying of wounds in October.

The Houthis had held the sailors hostage for several months, and it was not immediately clear why they had now released the sailors.

The Houthis halted their attacks during a brief, first ceasefire in the war in Gaza. They later became the target of a weeks-long campaign of airstrikes ordered by US President Donald Trump before declaring a ceasefire with the rebels. The current ceasefire in the war has seen the Houthis regain their hold.

Meanwhile, the future of talks between the United States and Iran over Tehran’s dysfunctional nuclear program is in question after Israel launched a 12-day war against the Islamic Republic in June in which the US bombed three Iranian nuclear sites.

,

Associated Press writer Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.