UKMTO says cargo ship reported unidentified skiff approaching off Mukalla

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MUKALLA, Yemen — A cargo ship reported an unidentified skiff approaching it about 98 nautical miles southwest of Mukalla on Thursday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said.

The organisation said it received the report at 0900 UTC from the vessel’s company security officer.

It logged the case as suspicious activity under warning 132-26 and advised ships in the area to transit with caution.

Authorities are investigating, UKMTO said.

The warning did not name the vessel or its flag. It did not give the skiff’s closest point of approach, and it did not say whether anyone aboard the smaller craft was seen carrying weapons.

UKMTO reported no boarding and no injuries.

The account of the incident rests entirely on that warning. Yemen Herald found no independent confirmation of the approach, and no shipping company or naval force has published its own version of events.

UKMTO is run by the Royal Navy. It is the main channel through which merchant ships report attacks, approaches and other security incidents in the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea and the wider north-western Indian Ocean, and it passes those reports to warships operating in the region.

UKMTO asks vessels transiting the corridor to report their movements and to maintain heightened vigilance.

The organisation issues advisories for the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and surrounding waters on a rolling basis, numbering each warning in sequence through the year. Thursday’s was the 132nd of 2026.

The waters off Mukalla sit on the approach to Bab al-Mandab, the strait carrying traffic between the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea and on to the Suez Canal.

Ships using that route have faced two separate threats this year. One is Houthi attacks on commercial traffic in the Red Sea. The other is piracy run out of Somalia.

Piracy in the region has returned to levels not recorded for a decade.

Sheba Intelligence counted at least 17 piracy-related incidents in Somali waters and the Gulf of Aden between January and this month. Three were successful hijackings of commercial vessels. Five involved dhows.

A separate tally put the figure at 13 incidents in the first seven months of the year, which it described as a ten-year high.

The Togo-flagged tanker Eureka was seized on 2 May at anchorage off Qana port in Shabwa governorate. Reports at the time said those holding it demanded as much as $10 million.

The Cameroon-flagged MV Lutuf was taken off Puntland on 17 August. An Eritrean-flagged tanker carrying oil products was captured days afterwards.

Gunmen boarded a tanker off Mukalla later in August and steered it toward the Somali coast. UKMTO said at the time that six armed men had boarded the vessel.

Analysts who track the networks say they no longer operate only along the Puntland coast. They cross the Gulf of Aden, take ships close to Yemeni anchorages, and move them back into Somali waters.

Reporting by CNBC in August linked the revival to enforcement gaps, with warships in the region drawn toward the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz.

Castor Vali, a maritime risk consultancy, has described the renewed threat in the Somali Basin and the Gulf of Aden as a reactivation of risk across the western Indian Ocean.

Yemen’s own coastline is divided between the internationally recognised government and the Houthi movement, and no single authority patrols it.

Yemeni naval forces said this month they had destroyed two Houthi explosive boats. The National Resistance said separately that it destroyed an explosive-laden craft heading into the Red Sea. Both accounts came from the forces involved and neither has been independently verified.

Yemen’s coast guard said last week it had stopped the tanker Nereida after a discharge at Ras Isa.

The approach off Mukalla was reported a week after fighting on land intensified. Clashes began on 3 September between Houthi forces and units loyal to the Presidential Leadership Council, starting in Taiz governorate and spreading to al-Jawf and al-Bayda.

Government forces said on 7 September they had taken the al-Labanat military camp and were moving toward al-Hazm, the capital of al-Jawf. The Presidential Leadership Council said the following day that the offensive was aimed at retaking Sanaa.

The Houthi movement disputed that account. A member of its political bureau, Mohammed al-Farah, said Houthi units repelled the advance toward the al-Labanat mountains and struck reinforcements in al-Jawf with ballistic missiles. Yemen Herald could not independently verify either side’s claims.

The Houthi movement took Mocha on the Red Sea coast this week as government forces pulled back from parts of the shoreline.

A separate case on 18 August involved a vessel struck by unknown projectiles off Mokha. UKMTO recorded that one as an attack rather than as suspicious activity.

The distinction carries weight in the organisation’s reporting. Suspicious activity covers approaches and sightings that do not develop into an assault, and it accounts for most of what UKMTO publishes in any given month.

UKMTO logged earlier reports near the same stretch of coast in the spring. It received an account of an incident 92 nautical miles southwest of Mukalla on 1 May, and a bulk carrier reported a suspicious approach off Yemen the following day.