The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) Centre says it has received a report of an incident around 194 kilometres northeast of Yemen’s Aden, adding that the crew were safe, Al Jazeera reports.

“A vessel has been approached to within 4 meters and fired upon by two skiffs with an unknown number of armed persons on board,” UKMTO says in a statement shared on social media.

“The vessel has deployed [a] security team and returned fire,” UKMTO says, adding that “the suspect vessels have now disengaged”.