A.P. Moller-Maersk (MAERSKb.CO), a Danish shipping company, announced on Thursday that a missile struck the Maersk Gibraltar container ship as it was sailing from Salalah, Oman, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Both the crew and the ship were reportedly unharmed.
Whether or whether the missile had hit the vessel was not immediately apparent.
Maersk released a statement saying, “At this time, we are still working to establish the facts of the incident.”
The incident took place near the Bad al-Mandab Strait linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, where Yemen’s Houthis on Tuesday claimed responsibility for a missile attack on a Norwegian chemical tanker.
“The recent attacks on commercial vessels in the Bad al-Mandab Strait are extremely concerning. The current situation puts seafarer lives at risk and is unsustainable for global trade,” Maersk said.
“As it cannot be solved by the global shipping industry on its own, we call on political action to ensure a swift de-escalation,” the company added.