Fire Guts Ship

A Sao Tome-registered ship carrying charcoal from Somalia to a Gulf Arab state was gutted by fire while sailing near Yemen's Soqatra island in the Arabian Sea, Reuters reported. They said authorities did not send rescue teams from Aden to help the stricken vessel, whose name was not immediately available, because ships would normally take two days to reach the location. Instead, port officials contacted ships sailing in the area to try to help the vessel. Neither the cause of the fire nor the fate of several Syrian sailors aboard the vessel was immediately clear, they added. - (Reuters)