Yemen army naval units discovered and dismantled seven naval mines west of Sana Island, about 40 nautical miles from the shores of northwest Yemen, on Saturday evening, a military source at the defense ministry told Almasdar online. 

The minesweeping mission, conducted by naval units belonging to Yemen’s Fifth Military Region, follows the explosion of a fishing boat in the Red Sea last week, killing three Egyptian fishermen and injuring another three.

Col. Turki Al-Maliki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, condemned the Houthis’ dissemination of sea mines calling it a “threat to the maritime traffic and international trade in the Bab Al-Mandab strait and the southern Red Sea.”

A total of 137 Houthi naval mines have been discovered and destroyed in that stretch of the Red Sea, he said. The mines have killed dozens of Yemeni fishermen, disrupted fishing and killed whales and marine life.  

The UN panel of experts on Yemen detailed the Houthis’ production and dissemination of the type of sea mine that killed the Egyptian fishermen in its 2018 report.