SEOUL/DUBAI: Yemen’s Ansar Allah movement released three vessels and 16 people it had seized, South Korea’s foreign ministry and an Ansar Allah military source in Yemen said on Wednesday.
Of the vessels freed on Tuesday, two were South Korean and one was Saudi Arabia-flagged, the South Korean foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the families of two South Koreans among the crew had been notified.
“The three ships were released after the necessary legal measures,” the Ansar Allah military source in Yemen said, adding that all crew were also released.
On Twitter, Hussein al Azzi, the Ansar Allah deputy foreign minister, said the release resulted from friendly ties between Seoul and Sanaa, the Yemeni capital the Ansar Allah overran in 2014.
An Ansar Allah investigation found the ships had entered Yemeni waters due to bad weather, he added. Earlier, the Ansar Allah coast guard had said the vessels entered Yemeni waters without permission.
The Ansar Allah movement had said it would release the captured vessels if they proved to be South Korean, after it seized a rig being towed by a Saudi-flagged tugboat in the southern part of the Red Sea.
The Saudi-led coalition said the seized vessels included a Korean drilling rig and the Saudi tug, the Rabigh 3, which were captured by armed Ansar Allah fighters who attacked from two boats.
Ansar Allah forces have been driven away from most of Yemen’s coast during the conflict, but still hold Hodeidah, the country’s biggest Red Sea port and the base of the group’s navy.
The United Nations says the Ansar Allah attacked two oil tankers last year in the Bab al Mandeb strait at the southern mouth of the Red Sea, as well as a vessel carrying wheat to Yemen. — Reuters
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