ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday condemned a Houthi attack on a commercial vessel in the southern Red Sea that killed three Pakistani nationals and injured a fourth, as Gulf and Red Sea shipping came under a widening pattern of assault.

The vessel was identified as the Tihamah, an Egyptian-owned, Tanzania-flagged small cargo ship, struck on Tuesday near Perim Island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The coastguard of Yemen’s internationally recognised government said the initial salvo set the ship ablaze and caused extensive damage, killing four sailors — three Pakistanis and one Indonesian. Two Yemeni rescuers from the anti-Houthi National Resistance Forces were then killed when the Houthis struck a second time after rescue crews arrived, bringing the toll to six. Ten people were wounded, including seven crew, two coastguard personnel and one NRF member.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar confirmed the Pakistani deaths in a post on X. He said the attack on a non-combatant commercial vessel endangered innocent lives, violated international law and threatened freedom of navigation and maritime security in the Red Sea. Dar said the government was in contact with relevant Saudi authorities and with Yemen’s internationally recognised government to establish the circumstances of the incident, and had directed Pakistan’s embassy in Riyadh to arrange the retrieval and repatriation of the deceased and assistance for the injured national.Foreign Office spokesperson Tahir Andrabi told a press briefing on Wednesday that Islamabad had learned of the incident with deep concern and extended condolences to the bereaved families.There was no direct Houthi comment on the Tihamah, though a Houthi-linked outlet later said the group’s forces had targeted a ship in the Bab el-Mandeb that it claimed was carrying Saudi military equipment.

The deaths are the first confirmed crew fatalities from a Houthi strike on shipping since the group declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia on July 20, a move that came as Yemen’s UN-backed 2022 truce collapsed amid the fighting between Iran and the United States.

Pakistanis have been repeatedly caught in the regional conflict’s fallout. Four Pakistani nationals have died in the UAE from debris falling during missile interceptions, and a fisherman from Gwadar was killed in March when debris from an intercepted missile struck his boat in Iranian waters.

The attack came on a day of compounding pressure on regional shipping. US Central Command confirmed that a Navy MH-60 helicopter fired two Hellfire missiles at the Panama-flagged container ship Vela Nova about 71 nautical miles off Pakistan’s coast in the Gulf of Oman, disabling its steering as it allegedly attempted to breach the US blockade by sailing toward an Iranian port. It was the third vessel disabled since Washington reimposed the blockade on July 14; CENTCOM said 55 commercial vessels have been redirected and two boarded. All 17 crew aboard the Vela Nova abandoned ship and were accounted for.

The cumulative effect has been a sharp contraction in traffic through both chokepoints. Roughly 32 vessels a day had been transiting the Bab el-Mandeb under a fragile safe-passage understanding since late July — down from about 50 before the blockade pressure began. Hormuz traffic has fallen to a one-week low, and the US Energy Information Administration has sharply raised its oil price forecasts, citing continued disruption to the strait.

The deaths land awkwardly for Islamabad, which is simultaneously trying to revive its mediation between Washington and Tehran. Andrabi said Pakistan was working to bring the two sides back to the negotiating table despite wide differences, and Iranian Ambassador Reza Amiri Moghadam met Dar on Wednesday, who stressed that dialogue and diplomacy remain the only effective means of addressing outstanding issues. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran on Tuesday. Yemen’s transport ministry, which gave a lower toll of four dead, held the Houthis fully responsible for the deaths, injuries and damage to the Tihamah and its wider consequences.

Sources: Geo News, Dawn, Republic World, Tech Times, Arab News, The Express Tribune, Container News, Seatrade Maritime, Stars and Stripes, List25, Washington Times, and Gulf News