German shipowners Hapag-Lloyd said Thursday that one of their cargo vessels in the Gulf caught fire after being "hit with shrapnel" overnight, adding that no one was injured.A company spokesman told AFP that "we don't know where (the debris) came from, whether it was a rocket or a drone" or another munition. He said "the fire has been put out and the crew is unharmed".
The container ship, the Liberian-flagged Source Blessing, was sub-chartered by Hapag-Lloyd to Maersk.
A statement from Maersk sent to AFP confirmed that the "Source Blessing was involved in an incident in the Persian Gulf early Thursday morning local time".
At the beginning of the Middle East conflict, Hapag-Lloyd had announced that it would suspend passage of its vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.
Also on Thursday, an attack on two oil tankers off Iraq killed at least one crew member.
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SOURCE GROUP
A.P. MOELLER-MAERSK
