A photo of a burning ship has circulated in reports about an explosion near the Crimean Peninsula in January 2019, contradicting multiple social media posts from January 2024 that claim it shows a vessel hit by Yemen’s Huthi rebels in the Red Sea. The Huthis began targeting Red Sea shipping in November 2023, as a way to support Palestinians in war-ravaged Gaza. But the news reports from 2019 say the photo in fact shows a ship that caught fire after transferring fuel to another vessel.
“The response was harsh. Now the Yemeni players score a goal in the Red Sea and hit their targets with high accuracy, thanks to Allah,” reads the Thai and Arabic-language caption of the photo shared on Facebook here on January 15, 2024.
The photo, which has been shared 100 times and received more than 3,400 likes, shows a ship ablaze in the sea with thick dark smoke rising into the sky.
The same photo was shared with similar claims in Thai on Facebook here and here, as well as in Arabic here and here.
It was shared after Huthi rebels — part of the anti-Western, anti-Israel “axis of resistance” of Iranian-backed groups — began targeting Red Sea shipping in November 2023. The Huthis said they are hitting Israel-linked vessels to show solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, which has been ravaged by the Israel-Hamas war since October.
US and British forces have responded with strikes against the rebels, who have since declared American and British interests to be legitimate targets as well. The attacks have prompted some shipping companies to detour around southern Africa to avoid the Red Sea, a vital route that normally carries about 12 percent of global maritime trade.
The photo, however, does not show a Huthi target in the Red Sea.
Kerch Strait ‘explosion’ in 2019
A reverse image search on Google led to the same photo used in news articles by United Press International, Deutsche Welle, The Telegraph, and BBC Ukraine about vessels catching fire in the Kerch Strait on January 21, 2019 (archived links here, here, here, and here).
The UPI report, published on January 22, 2019, is headlined, “14 crew pronounced dead as Kerch Strait rescue mission called off”.
The caption of the photo used in the report says, “A total 14 people have died following an explosion involving two cargo ships in the Kerch Strait between the Crimean and Russian borders in the Black Sea, on Jan. 21, 2019.” It is credited to “Kerch.FM/EPA-EFE”.
The photo can be found in the EPA photo archive here (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison between the false post (left) and the photo in EPA’s photo archive (right):
According to an AFP report from January 21, 2019, the fire broke out when one vessel was transferring fuel to the other, driving both crews to jump overboard.
AFP previously debunked several pieces of misinformation related to the Red Sea attacks such as here, here, and here.