New Delhi/Sanaa, October 23: Yemen's Houthi movement on Thursday claimed that Saudi Arabia had targeted a yacht carrying 14 Indian nationals near Zuqar Island in the southern Red Sea, and said its forces were rescuing the people on board.
The claim, which has not been independently verified, added a dramatic new twist to a week of rapidly escalating cross-border violence between the Iran-backed Houthis and Saudi Arabia, violence in which Indian citizens have already paid a heavy price.
The announcement came in the form of a post on X by Brigadier Yahya Saree, the military spokesperson for the Houthi-aligned Yemeni Armed Forces. According to his statement, Saudi forces were targeting an Indian yacht near Zuqar Island, with 14 people of Indian nationality on board according to preliminary information. He added that the Yemeni Armed Forces were in the process of rescuing those on board and promised to release further details later.
Saree described the alleged targeting as a "reckless act" and warned that it threatened international navigation in the Red Sea. He also called upon the international community to restrain Saudi Arabia from what he termed irresponsible actions. The Houthi spokesperson's post framed the episode as deliberate Saudi aggression against a civilian vessel, though no independent confirmation of the incident was available at the time of reporting.
Saudi authorities had not officially commented on the Houthi allegations about the yacht by late Thursday evening, leaving the factual basis of the claim unclear. News agencies and international observers treat claims of this kind with caution, particularly when they originate from one party in an active conflict and concern an incident in a disputed maritime zone. The Houthis themselves couched the statement in caveats, saying their information was preliminary.
India responded cautiously but swiftly. The Embassy of India in Yemen issued a statement on X saying it had seen reports about an incident involving 14 Indian nationals on a yacht off the coast of Yemen. The mission said it was working to ascertain further details and pledged to extend all possible help to ensure the safety and well-being of the Indian nationals.
"We have seen reports regarding an incident involving 14 Indian nationals on board a yacht off the coast of Yemen today," the embassy said in its post, which tagged the Ministry of External Affairs. "We are ascertaining further details about the incident and will provide all possible help for ensuring the safety and well-being of the Indian nationals."
Notably, the statement stopped short of confirming that the incident had occurred as described by the Houthis. The wording suggested that New Delhi was treating the episode as an unconfirmed report requiring verification, rather than an established fact.
Neither the Ministry of External Affairs nor the embassy offered any comment on the Houthi allegation that Saudi forces were responsible, nor did they say where the 14 Indians currently were or whether they were in Houthi custody after the claimed rescue.
The timing of the Houthi claim is significant. It came a day after one of the deadliest weeks for Indian citizens in Saudi Arabia in recent memory. On Wednesday evening, an attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam killed two people, including an Indian national, and injured several others, among them two more Indian citizens, according to the Indian Embassy in Riyadh.
Earlier the same day, a separate drone strike on Saudi Aramco's Shaybah oil field in the Eastern Province injured another Indian expatriate, while two other foreign workers were killed.
The Indian Embassy in Riyadh confirmed the deaths and injuries on Thursday, saying Saudi authorities had informed it that one Indian national was among the two people who lost their lives in the Dammam airport attack and that two Indian nationals had been injured. The mission said it was gathering further details and reaching out to the affected families, expressing its condolences to the bereaved and wishing a speedy recovery to the injured.
India also issued a firm condemnation of the attacks on Saudi Arabia. The Ministry of External Affairs said it strongly condemned the continued attacks on civilian and energy infrastructure in the Kingdom, naming both the Dammam airport strike and the Shaybah oil field attack of October 21.
The ministry noted that these attacks had caused civilian deaths and injuries, declared such attacks on civilian and critical infrastructure completely unacceptable, and said they must cease immediately.
"We stand in solidarity with the people and the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in safeguarding its sovereignty, and hope that peace and normalcy would return to the region at the earliest," the MEA said in its statement, a message of support that underscored how seriously New Delhi views the threat to its citizens and interests in the region.
The Houthis, for their part, have blamed Saudi forces for a fresh wave of air and missile strikes across several provinces in Yemen this week. The tit-for-tat pattern of attacks has raised fears that the long-running conflict in Yemen could spill further into international waters, a concern echoed in Saree's warning about the threat to Red Sea navigation.
The Red Sea is one of the world's most important shipping corridors, and any disruption there carries consequences for global trade and energy flows.
The broader context is one of sharply escalating hostilities between the Iran-backed Houthi movement and Saudi Arabia, with both sides striking at each other's facilities and infrastructure in recent months. The Houthis have expanded the range of their drone and missile operations deep into Saudi territory, while the Saudi-led coalition has continued to hit targets inside Yemen.
Each round of strikes has increased the risk to civilians and third-country nationals caught in the crossfire.
For India, the stakes are especially high because of the sheer size of its diaspora in the region. Nearly 2.7 million Indian expatriates live and work across the Arabian Peninsula, with large communities in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. A significant number of them are employed in sectors such as construction, logistics, energy and domestic services, often in areas close to the infrastructure that has come under attack.
The killing of an Indian national in the Dammam attack has brought home the reality that ordinary workers far from the front lines are increasingly exposed to the violence.
The incident at sea, if confirmed, would mark a new and worrying dimension. Civilian pleasure craft are not normally targets in the conflict, and the Houthi claim has raised questions about whether the yacht was deliberately struck, caught in crossfire, or perhaps not attacked at all. Maritime security experts note that the southern Red Sea near Yemen has been a danger zone for shipping for years, with commercial vessels attacked by drones, missiles and mines.
A small yacht would be particularly vulnerable and hard to monitor, making verification of any incident difficult.
There are also questions about why 14 Indian nationals were on a yacht near Zuqar Island, an area close to Yemen's conflict zones, and under what circumstances they ended up in waters where naval operations were under way. None of these details were available on Thursday.
The Indian Embassy in Yemen, which oversees Indian interests in the country from its operations in the region, said it was ascertaining the facts, suggesting that even the identity of the yacht and the circumstances of its voyage were still unclear.
Diplomatically, the episode places New Delhi in a delicate position. India has maintained working relations with both Saudi Arabia, a key energy supplier and home to millions of its citizens, and has had to navigate the Yemen conflict carefully. The embassy's measured response, focused on the welfare of the nationals and the need for more information, reflects an effort to avoid taking sides in the competing claims while making clear that the safety of Indians is the priority.
Looking ahead, much depends on what the Houthis disclose next. Saree promised more details later, and any further information, photographs or statements about the rescued Indians could help clarify what actually happened. Independent verification, perhaps from maritime tracking data or a statement from Riyadh, would be crucial.
Until then, the fate of the 14 Indians remains uncertain, and the Indian mission's assurance that it will provide all possible help is the clearest signal so far of how New Delhi is approaching the crisis.
The episode also underscores the urgent need for de-escalation. The MEA's call for an immediate end to attacks on civilian and critical infrastructure applies to all parties, and the Red Sea incident, real or exaggerated, illustrates how quickly a regional conflict can endanger third-country nationals.
With investigations under way and tensions running high, the coming days are likely to bring more clarity, and possibly more pressure on the warring parties to pull back from the brink.
(Reporting based on NDTV and The Indian Express.)