S’pore condemns Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, urges parties to exercise restraint: MFA

SINGAPORE – The Republic condemns the recent attacks on Saudi Arabia, including on energy infrastructure and commercial vessels in the Red Sea, said Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).

In a statement on the Middle East situation on July 26, an MFA spokesperson said: “It is imperative that navigational rights and freedoms are respected and upheld in accordance with international law as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and that the safety of seafarers and ships is ensured in accordance with the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS).”

The spokesperson urged all parties to exercise restraint and avoid actions that could further escalate tensions.

This comes after the Iran war broadened following attacks on July 25 on Saudi oil installations along the Red Sea coast by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis.

The war, which has already disrupted energy supplies through the Strait of Hormuz, could affect a second major shipping route and reignite Yemen’s civil war.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree told Reuters that the group struck sites belonging to Saudi state oil company Aramco in the cities of Jizan and Yanbu on July 25.

The Aramco refinery in Jizan, near the Yemeni border, can process up to 400,000 barrels of crude oil daily.

Two Asia-based trading sources said they had been informed of potential damage to fuel and oil storage sites at Jizan.

In Yanbu, two missiles aimed at oil installations were intercepted. Yanbu, Saudi Arabia’s main Red Sea oil port, has become a key route for Saudi oil skirting the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has blockaded.

Meanwhile in Yemen, officials said the air force of the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government, which has opposed the Houthis for more than a decade, struck Houthi sites in the Marib and al-Jawf provinces.

Saudi Arabia has led an Arab coalition battling the Houthis for more than a decade since the Iran-aligned fighters captured Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.

The civil war, during which hundreds of thousands of people died from fighting and famine, has been paused under a ceasefire since 2022.

But that truce broke down in July, with the Houthis effectively joining the wider war that their Iranian allies have waged since being attacked by the US and Israel five months ago.