DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels set a Dutch-flagged cargo ship ablaze in the Gulf of Aden on Monday, officials said, wounding two mariners and forcing its crew to abandon the damaged vessel.
It was the most serious attack in the Gulf of Aden, some distance from the Red Sea where the Iranian-backed Houthis sank two vessels in July.
While the rebels did not claim the assault on the Minervagracht, they had threatened to strike ships as part of their campaign over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, particularly as Israel squeezes in on Gaza City in a new ground offensive. Meanwhile, the Mideast also remains on edge after the United Nations reimposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.
The Minervagracht had been targeted on Sept. 23 in an unsuccessful attack in the Gulf of Aden, which connects to the Red Sea via the Bab el-Mandeb Strait separating East Africa from the Arabian Peninsula. On Monday, a missile launch seen by some in Yemen apparently struck the Minervagracht.
Spliethoff, the ship's owner, described the strike as “inflicting substantial damage to the ship.” A helicopter evacuated the ship's 19 crew members, of which two were wounded, it added.
A European naval force operating in the region, known as Operation Aspides, said early Tuesday that the Minervagracht “is on fire and adrift” after the crew's rescue. It identified the ship's crew as coming from the Philippines, Russia, Sri Lanka and Ukraine, with one wounded and stable and another severely wounded and airlifted to Djibouti for medical care.
The French military’s Maritime Information, Cooperation and Awareness Center identified the Houthis as carrying out the attack.
The Houthis wait hours and even days to claim their assaults and have not yet done so.
The rebels have launched missile and drone attacks on over 100 ships and on Israel in response to the war in Gaza, saying they were acting in solidarity with the Palestinians.
However, the group's past targets have had little or no connection to Israel. The U.S. Navy-overseen Joint Maritime Information Center earlier said that the Minervagracht had “no Israeli affiliations.”
The Houthi attack widens the area of the rebels' recent assaults, as the last recorded attack on a commercial vessel in the Gulf of Aden before the Minervagracht came in August 2024.
Their attacks over the past two years have upended shipping in the Red Sea, through which about $1 trillion of goods passed each year before the war.
The Houthis stopped their attacks during a brief ceasefire in the war. They later became the target of an intense weekslong campaign of airstrikes ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump before he declared a ceasefire had been reached with the rebels. The Houthis sank two vessels in July, killing at least four on board, with others believed to be held by the rebels. They sank two others earlier in the campaign.
Associated Press writer Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.
FILE - Houthi fighters march during a rally of support for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and against the U.S. strikes on Yemen outside Sanaa on Jan. 22, 2024. (AP Photo, File)
When President Donald Trump suspended the refugee program on day one of his current administration, thousands of people around the world who'd been so close to a new life in America found themselves abandoned.
As part of Trump's crackdown on legal and illegal migration, the Republican president has upended the decades-old refugee program that has served as a beacon for those fleeing war and persecution. In October, he resumed the program but set a historic low of refugee admissions at 7,500 — mostly white South Africans.
New restrictions were announced after an Afghan national became the suspect in the shooting of two National Guard members last week. The Trump administration also plans a review of refugees let in during the Democratic Biden administration. Trump's administration has cited economic and national security concerns for its policy changes.
About 600,000 people were being processed to come to the U.S. as refugees when the program was halted, according to the administration. Aside from dozens of white South Africans let in this year, only about 100 others have been admitted as a result of a lawsuit by advocates seeking to restore the refugee program, said Mevlüde Akay Alp, a lawyer arguing the case.
The Associated Press spoke to three families whose lives have been thrown into disarray because of the changing policies.
The Dawoods fled civil war in Syria and settled in northern Iraq. They hoped to find a new home that could provide better medical care for a daughter who had fallen from the fourth floor of the family’s apartment building.
After they were accepted as refugees to the U.S., son Ibrahim and his sister Ava relocated to Connecticut in November 2024. His parents and one of his brothers were scheduled to fly in January.
But just two days before they were to board their flight, mother Hayat Fatah fainted at a medical check and her departure was postponed. Mohammed, another sibling, didn't want to leave his parents behind.
Nearly a year later, he and his parents are still waiting.
In America, Ibrahim wakes up early to tutor people online before going to his job as a math teacher at a private school, and then he takes care of his sister when he gets home. He said his mother often cries when they talk because she wishes she were in America to help care for her daughter.
Chinese Christian Lu Taizhi fled to Thailand more than a decade ago, fearing persecution for his beliefs. He’s lived in legal limbo since, waiting to be resettled in the United States.
Lu said he has long admired the U.S. for what he calls its Christian character — a place where he feels he and his family “can seek freedom.”
Lu was born into a family branded as “hostile elements” by the Chinese Communist Party for its land ownership and ties to a competing political party. A teacher and poet, Lu grew interested in history banned by the Chinese state, penning tributes to the bloody 1989 Tiananmen crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing.
In 2004, Lu was arrested after police found poems and essays he secretly published criticizing Chinese politics and the education system. After his release, Lu became a Christian and began preaching, drawing scrutiny from local authorities.
With Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s rise to power, controls tightened. When Beijing arrested hundreds of rights lawyers in 2015, Lu took his family and fled, settling in Thailand, where they applied for refugee status with the United Nations.
Eight years later, the U.N. notified Lu the U.S. had accepted his application. But after several delays, his most recent flight was canceled shortly after Trump’s inauguration. His application has been put on hold indefinitely.
Louis arrived in the United States as a refugee in September 2024. He left his wife and two children in East Africa, hoping they could soon be reunited in the U.S.
But that dream faded a few months later with Trump's return to the presidency.
Louis, who insisted on being identified only by his first name out of concern that speaking publicly could complicate his case, was told in January that a request he had made to bring his family to the U.S. had been frozen due to changes in refugee policies.
Now, the family members live thousands of miles apart without knowing when they will be reunited. His wife, Apolina, and the children, 2 and 3 years old, are in a refugee camp in Uganda. Louis is in Kentucky.
“I don’t want to lose her, and she does not want to lose me,” said Louis, who resettled in Kentucky with the help of the International Rescue Committee.
Louis and Apolina's families applied for refugee status after fleeing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Louis' application, initiated by his parents, was approved, Apolina's, made separately by her parents, was not.
Apolina thought that, as the wife of a refugee, it would take her no more than one year to reunite with her husband, who now works in an appliance factory and has already applied for permanent residency.
The separation hasn’t been easy for her and the children, who live in a tent in the refugee camp.
Santana reported from Washington, Kang from Beijing and Salomon from Miami. Associated Press writers Evelyne Musambi in Nairobi, Kenya, and Salar Salim in Irbil, Iraq, contributed to this report.
Lu Taizhi, a Chinese Christian who is waiting to be resettled in the United States, points to the webpage of the International Rescue Committee, which is under maintenance and not operational in Ban Wawee village, Chiang Rai Province, Thailand, Nov. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/ Tian Macleod Ji)
Syrian refugee Abdulilah Amin Dawoud, 73, poses for a picture at his home in Irbil, Iraq, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Farid Abdulwahed)
Syrian refugee Hayat Fatah, 65, cleans dishes at her home in Irbil, Iraq, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Farid Abdulwahed)
Syrian refugee Mohammed Dawood, 30, left, poses for a photo with his parents, Hayat Fatah, 65, center, and Abdulilah Amin Dawoud, 73, at their home in Irbil, Iraq, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Farid Abdulwahed)
