Public radio’s longest-running daily global news program.
©2025 The World from PRX
PRX is a 501(c)(3) organization recognized by the IRS: #263347402.
Saudis say 19 oil ships are held hostage off Yemen. Not true, say maritime experts.
Saudis last week announced 19 fuel tankers had been seized by Yemeni rebels. But shipping industry sources say “everything is normal.”
Conflict & Justice
Updated:
A Saudi border guard watches as he stands in a boat off the coast of the Red Sea on Saudi Arabia's maritime border with Yemen.
Faisal Al Nasser/Reuters
A Saudi Arabian diplomat said last weekend that 19 oil tankers were seized by rebel forces off the coast of Yemen. Then, the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC, repeated the story. But based on interviews and research conducted by PRI, there is no hostage situation at all.
The first report appeared Saturday, April 21 in a tweet from a Saudi Arabian diplomat, Mohammad Al-Jabir, which showed a list of ships which the ambassador said were being detained outside Yemen's deepwater port of Hodeidah.
"A list of detained ships by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in the anchoring zone, which they control," the tweet reads. "These ships have been detained for more than 26 days."
The Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC, amplified Jabir's claims two days later in a press release.