Maersk Says Containership En Route to Saudi Arabia was Targeted by Missile

Danish shipping company A.P. Moller-Maersk said on Thursday its container ship Maersk Gibraltar was targeted by a missile while traveling from Salalah, Oman, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and that the crew and vessel were reported safe.

It was not immediately clear if the missile had struck the vessel or not.

"At this time, we are still working to establish the facts of the incident," Maersk said in a statement.

The incident took place near the Bad al-Mandab Strait linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, where Yemen's Houthis on Tuesday claimed responsibility for a missile attack on a Norwegian chemical tanker.

"The recent attacks on commercial vessels in the Bad al-Mandab Strait are extremely concerning. The current situation puts seafarer lives at risk and is unsustainable for global trade," Maersk said.

"As it cannot be solved by the global shipping industry on its own, we call on political action to ensure a swift de-escalation," the company added

(Reuters - Reporting by Louise Breusch Rasmussen and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen, editing by Terje Solsvik, Kirsten Donovan)