AL-MUKALLA, Yemen: Yemen’s Houthi militia said that rescue ships and tugboats will begin recovering a burning oil tanker in the Red Sea on Sunday, as experts warn that time is running out to avoid a calamity as a fire on the vessel spreads.

The Greek-flagged Sounion, carrying 150,000 tonnes of crude oil, has been abandoned since late last month after a Houthi assault destroyed its engine and caused a fire, presenting a hazard to the maritime environment and commerce.

In a post on X on Saturday, Houthi Foreign Minister Jamal Amer said that the tugboats will reach and recover the tanker on Sunday, bolstering hopes of averting a major disaster in the Red Sea.

Since November, the Houthis have attacked commercial and navy ships in the Red Sea and other waters near Yemen with ballistic missiles, drones and boat drones, claiming to be acting in support of Palestinians in Gaza.

It comes as maritime experts and the EU naval mission in the Red Sea urged immediate and comprehensive international action to rescue the Sounion in order to avoid an environmental and shipping catastrophe in the Red Sea, which would affect Yemen and other Red Sea countries.

“MV Sounion represents a huge environmental risk that will affect all countries bordering the Red Sea,” the EU naval mission, known as EUNAVFOR ASPIDES, said in a post on X on Sunday.

Wim Zwijnenburg of the Humanitarian Disarmament Project at the Dutch peace organization PAX told Arab News on Sunday, citing recent satellite images, that the fire on the oil tanker is spreading because of the recent Houthi use of explosives onboard, which could damage the ship’s hull and cause the Sounion to sink.

“The fires and heat will lead to a deterioration of the structural integrity of the hull, which can have catastrophic consequences, with a wider environmental fallout for the Red Sea and coastal communities,” he said.

“The situation is getting more critical by the day. The fires are not contained and affect the pressure on the hull, which could lead to an explosion and sinking of the entire ship, with the remaining crude oil spreading.”

In addition to the Sounion, the Houthis have destroyed two commercial ships in the Red Sea since the start of their campaign, including the Belize-flagged and Lebanese-operated MV Rubymar, which was carrying 22,000 tonnes of ammonium phosphate-sulfate NPS fertilizer and more than 200 tonnes of fuel.

Zwijnenburg said that the explosion or leaking of the ship and its cargo would have a catastrophic impact on the marine and coastal environment, as well as people’s livelihoods in Yemen and Eritrea, adding that the salvage operation would begin by extinguishing the fire and transferring the ship’s cargo to another vessel.

“A salvage operation with security presence must be set up to stop the fires, tow the vessel to a safe area and transfer the contents to another tanker,” Zwijnenburg said.

Experts also warned that the Houthis may be exploiting the rescue operation as a bargaining chip to put pressure on the international community, as they did with the FSO Safer oil tanker off Yemen’s western city of Hodeidah.

According to Noam Raydan, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the US should immediately waive sanctions on regional tugboat companies and deploy international naval forces around the ship to prevent the Houthis from disrupting the operation.

She also called for international naval forces be prevent the Houthis from returning to ships and sinking them.

“Experience has shown that the group is willing to interfere with salvage efforts if they can turn the situation into a political bargaining chip — as seen most prominently during the protracted mission to empty the FSO Safer,” she said in an article published on the think tank’s website on Aug. 29.

Despite worldwide outcry over the devastating Houthi strikes on ships, the group’s
military spokesperson, Yahya Sarea, claimed responsibility on Saturday night for a new missile attack on the Liberian-flagged merchant ship MV Groton in the Gulf of Aden, vowing to continue the campaign.

US Central Command said on Sunday morning that its forces had destroyed a drone and a drone boat in Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen.