Pakistan condemns alleged Houthi strike killing 3 citizens

Pakistan condemned an alleged Houthi attack on a commercial vessel in the Red Sea after Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said three Pakistani citizens were killed and one was wounded.

Yemen's coastguard said Tuesday that a strike by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels on a vessel left six people dead, including Pakistanis and an Indonesian citizen. The Houthis have made no official comment on the incident.

Dar wrote on X that Pakistan “strongly condemns the Houthi attack on a non-combatant commercial vessel”. He said Pakistan was in contact with Saudi authorities and Yemen's internationally recognised government to establish further details and the circumstances of the incident.

The incident comes as Pakistan holds a defence pact with Saudi Arabia that was expanded last week to include Turkey. Pakistan has said the pact, which treats an attack on any of the three members as an attack on all, is defensive and not aimed at any country.

A years-long truce in Yemen's civil war between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government collapsed last month as fighting flared between Iran and the United States.