Early one morning in December a commercial cargo vessel was traveling through the Red Sea,

when suddenly a flying object slammed into it. through the

flying object slammed into it. We were attacked with the drone.

The drone only hit some containers,

two containers fell in the sea, some containers were on fire.

That's Neels Haubt, a spokesman for Hopag Lloyd, the owner of the ship.

It's the fifth largest container shipping firm in the world.

Nils watched the situation unfold from the company's headquarters in Hamburg.

It is not hard to imagine that this is a very shocking event for the crew and of course also for the entire shipping line because this is something we have never experienced and this is also something where you are basically totally helpless because against a

drone or a missile a crew of 23 24 people is basically helpless.

Was the crew caught off guard by this attack or did they see it coming?

Well, it's very difficult to see it coming.

I mean, seeing yourself under attack was something unimaginable. yeah then the crew was caught by surprise

The group behind the attack the huthies a militant group based out of Yemen.

And the attack on the Hopag Lloyd vessel wasn't an isolated incident.

The Huthies have launched more than two dozen attacks on commercial ships over the past few months,

destabilizing an important commerce route.

As a result of the attacks, major shipping companies have decided to avoid the Red Sea

and are now rerouting ships thousands of miles away

around the southern tip of Africa, delaying shipments by weeks

and adding millions of dollars in additional costs.

And how would you characterize the situation with shipping in the Red Sea right now?

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