As of today, exactly two years have passed since the hijacking of the Galaxy Leader, a ship owned by an Israeli company and flying the flag of the Bahamas, which was assaulted on November 19, 2023, by the Yemeni Houthi militias while it was in the Gulf of Aden, the stretch of the Indian Ocean between Yemen and Somalia.
The merchant ship became one of the first symbols of the Houthi campaign against commercial shipping in the Red Sea, which since then has recorded 97 attacks, four of which led to the sinking of the assaulted ships, and which in one case narrowly avoided an environmental disaster, with the Sounion, a Greek-flagged oil tanker attacked by the Houthis on August 21, 2024, which was on fire for weeks in the Red Sea before being recovered by tugboats under the supervision of the naval mission Eunavfor Aspides.
Of the Galaxy Leader tragedy, readers will remember above all the odyssey of the 25 sailors on board, released and transferred to Oman after spending 430 days in captivity. The release of the hostages, which took place last January 23, was one of the positive consequences of the climate of détente fostered by the start of the truce in Gaza.
