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New York: Yemen’s Houthi militia has released a video showing its forces hijacking the ship Galaxy Leader, a day after announcing it had seized the vessel in the Red Sea as a demonstration of support for “the oppressed Palestinian people”.
The video release on Monday (Tuesday AEDT), whose authenticity was verified by The New York Times, shows at least 10 armed men on the deck of the roughly 189-metre vessel after jumping out of a military helicopter hovering just above it.
Most of the video appears to come from cameras attached to men’s heads, and follows them as they seize control of the bridge from crew members. A later section of the video, taken from a distance, shows a handful of small boats known to be used by Houthi rebels moving around and alongside the ship.
One flies a Yemeni flag used by the Houthis as well as a Palestinian flag; the same flags are by this point flying on the Galaxy Leader.
The whereabouts of the Galaxy Leader has been unknown since Saturday, when its last received location signal showed it in the Red Sea, between Saudi Arabia and Sudan. But the new video contains clues about when and where the vessel was hijacked.
A clock on the wall of the Galaxy Leader’s bridge in the video shows a time of just after 1pm. Additionally, a navigational computer display shows the ship had travelled almost three-quarters of the way down Yemen’s coast.
The evidence suggests that Houthi fighters took over the vessel when it was within quick and easy striking distance of Yemen’s coast, rather than further north in the middle of the Red Sea.
A New York Times analysis of a satellite image captured on Sunday morning – hours before the time shown on the bridge clock – offers further evidence that the Galaxy Leader had travelled several hundred kilometres beyond its last known location. In the image, a ship whose visual characteristics and dimensions show it to be the Galaxy Leader is seen transiting the Red Sea near the Zubair group of Yemeni islands. The satellite image was likely captured just hours before the hijacking. Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com, which monitors global shipping, first spotted the ship in the image.
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