The chairman of Yemen’s Supreme Revolutionary Committee announced on Saturday that the Houthi Ansarullah movement had managed to capture the boat near Hudaydah.
In a statement on Sunday, the revolutionary movement said the boat had been captured with French military personnel aboard, Al-Masdar news reported.
The seizure came as French newspaper Le Figaro reported on Saturday that French special forces are present on the ground in Yemen.
On Friday, the French Defense Ministry said that France was studying the possibility of carrying out a mine-sweeping operation to provide access to the port of Hudaydah once the Saudi-led coalition had wrapped up its military operations.
France, along with the United States and Britain, backs the coalition in the Yemen conflict and provides weapons to both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The Saudi-led coalition and its mercenaries began a massive operation on Wednesday to bring Yemen’s port city under their control.
While the Yemeni army and popular committees are fighting off the assailants and countering attacks on residential areas, international humanitarian organizations have warned of dire consequences of any escalation of violence around Hudaydah.
UN Humanitarian Coordinator Lise Grande recently said “as many as 250,000 people may lose everything -even their lives,” if there is a military attack on Hudaydah.