Egypt Denies Ownership of Tihama After Deadly Houthi Attack

Egypt Distances Itself from Attacked Vessel

Egyptian officials have pushed back against claims that they were connected to the small cargo ship Tihama, which was struck by Houthi forces in an attack that left six people dead. According to a report by The Maritime Executive, Egypt’s Ministry of Transport described suggestions of Egyptian ownership as false, stating the vessel actually belongs to a Yemeni national.

The confusion appears to stem from corporate registry details: although the Tihama flies the Tanzanian flag, shipping databases identified its manager and owner’s representative as Blue Sea For Management Marine, a firm with an address in Alexandria. Egyptian authorities countered that this company holds no registration with the Egyptian Chamber of Shipping and lacks a license to operate as a maritime agency in the country. Cairo further clarified that the ship’s management is actually based in Dubai, and stressed that the Tihama had never called at an Egyptian port, was not bound for Egypt, and carried no cargo linked to Egyptian interests.

Conflicting Accounts of the Ship’s Purpose

Yemeni officials described the Tihama as a civilian ferry, licensed for maritime transport and used to move passengers between Aden, Djibouti, Somalia, and Socotra. They noted the vessel had previously delivered fuel and supplies to Socotra Island. The Houthis, however, claimed responsibility for the strike, alleging the ship was being used to transport Saudi military supplies as part of their broader campaign against what they call Saudi aggression.

The attack coincided with a reported four-day Houthi assault on the government-controlled port of Al-Mocha. In total, six people were killed — four crew members and two Coast Guard personnel — with ten others injured aboard the Tihama.

A spokesperson for the Joint Forces in Yemen’s western region acknowledged that ferries suspected of carrying military equipment could also become targets, while maintaining that efforts are made to protect civilian passengers aboard such vessels. Yet observers examining available photographs of the Tihama reported seeing no visible military cargo, and images instead showed the ship docked, with the Yemeni government stating it was out of service for engine repairs at the time.

Egypt Condemns the Attack Amid Red Sea Tensions

Egypt’s Transport Minister issued a separate statement condemning the strike and the broader pattern of vessel targeting in the Red Sea, warning that such incidents pose a serious threat to navigational safety and security in the region.

What This Means for Owners and Managers

This episode is a reminder of how murky ownership and management structures can become a serious liability once a vessel is drawn into conflict zones. A ship’s flag state, registered manager, and actual beneficial ownership can diverge significantly — and when an attack occurs, these discrepancies get scrutinized publicly and rapidly, sometimes unfairly implicating parties with no operational connection to the vessel.

For ship owners and managers operating anywhere near the Red Sea or Gulf of Aden, this incident underscores the importance of maintaining accurate, verifiable registration and management records that can withstand scrutiny in the event of an incident. It also highlights why third-party condition surveys and independent documentation of a vessel’s cargo, ownership chain, and operational status matter more than ever in contested waters. When claims and counterclaims fly as fast as they did here — over whether a vessel was carrying military supplies, ferrying civilians, or simply laid up for repairs — having an independent, dated survey record can be the difference between a company being wrongly associated with an incident and being able to demonstrate clearly what a vessel was actually doing and carrying at the time.

The broader pattern of attacks on shipping tied to the Yemen conflict, now apparently extending to smaller regional ferries and cargo vessels rather than just larger commercial tankers and containerships, suggests that risk assessments for Red Sea transits need to account for a wider range of vessel types being drawn into the crossfire, not just the larger internationally flagged ships that have dominated headlines to date.

Reviewed by Ibrahim Halil Ceylan, Marine Surveyor at Apeks Marine.