A message doing the rounds on social media claims that recently, the Houthis of Yemen seized a cargo ship containing cows, mistaking it for an Israeli ship. Later, according to the viral post, they found that the ship belonged to India, after which they let it go. Let’s fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: An Indian cargo ship filled with cows was seized by Houthis, mistaking it for an Israeli ship.
Fact: Media reported on 19 November 2023 that the Houthis of Yemen seized a cargo ship bound for India in the Red Sea, which was linked to an Israeli company. As claimed, there is no evidence that the ship contained cows from India, and also, it was headed to India and did not start from India, which contradicts the claim that cows were being shipped from India. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To check the veracity of these claims, we performed a keyword search on the internet, which led us to several news reports (here, here, and here) from November 2023. According to these reports, the Yemen rebel group Houthis seized a ship headed to India on 19 November 2023. ‘Houthi fighters descended on the ship from helicopters and took all 25 crew members hostage. The crew is being treated “in accordance with Islamic values”, the rebels have said.’ the Indian Express reported
None of the news reports made a mention of cows being transported on this ship. Contrary to the viral claim, the ship was reportedly headed to India. This evidence makes it clear that the viral claim is a concocted story around this incident, which has nothing to do with the transport of cows from India. In fact, the export of cows is prohibited (here, here, and here) in India, and only the export of buffalo meat is legal.
Furthermore, a reverse image search on the viral photo revealed that this is a cropped version of a cargo ship’s photo, which has been available on the Internet at least since 2013 (here, here, and here). Reportedly, this ship carried livestock to Abu Dhabi’s Khalifa Post from Australia.
To sum up, Yemen’s Houthi rebels seized a cargo ship bound for India, not an Indian ship exporting cows.
