The twenty-five merchant sailors who abandoned the Sounion were Filipino and Russian, crewing a Greek-owned ship under contract to Delta Tankers of Athens. Two of Delta's other vessels, the Delta Blue and the Delta Atlantica, had already been attacked by Houthi forces earlier in the Red Sea crisis. The sailors on the Sounion were civilians. They had no part in the politics of Gaza or Tehran or Sanaa. The Chevalier Paul, responding to their distress call, evacuated all of them to Djibouti over the night of 21-22 August. While the French crew was working to save the mariners, a Houthi explosive boat approached at speed. The Chevalier Paul's 20mm Narwhal guns destroyed it. Everybody aboard the Sounion got to shore alive. That, at least, was the outcome the crew deserved.

On 23 August, the Houthis released their own footage. It showed their fighters boarding the empty tanker, then cutting to a long shot of three simultaneous blasts detonating across the ship's length - plainly charges set by hand rather than missile or drone strikes. The Houthis' own fighters, chanting their movement's slogan, stood by as the Sounion burned. This was a different kind of attack from what the Houthis had done earlier, to the Rubymar in February 2024 or the Tutor that June - both of which had been sunk in the course of strikes but not deliberately destroyed after boarding. The Sounion was blown up on purpose, fully loaded, in the middle of a sea that Yemeni fishermen depend on for food.

A million barrels of Iraqi crude burning into the Red Sea would have been catastrophic. The Red Sea is a narrow, enclosed marine system with unusually high biodiversity - coral reefs, mangroves, migratory tuna, turtles, the fishing grounds that feed coastal Yemen. US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller described the Houthis as willing to destroy the fishing industry and regional ecosystems that Yemenis and other communities in the region rely on for their livelihoods. Pentagon administrator Sabrina Singh, asked what the attack actually accomplished, answered: They said they were launching these attacks to help the people of Gaza, not sure how that helps anyone in Gaza. The potential spill would have fallen hardest on the coast the Houthis claim to defend.

An initial tugboat mission on 2 September was aborted because the ship was still on fire and the conditions were unsafe. For ten days the Sounion burned and drifted. On 12 September the Greek Coast Guard announced a new attempt, escorted by Greek and French warships. Two days later, on 14 September, a salvage team from the Greek tugboat Aigaion Pelagos managed to secure a tow line in temperatures on deck that reached 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Over 200 personnel worked the operation. The fires took three weeks to extinguish fully. On 16 September, Aspides confirmed the Sounion had been towed safely away from Yemen. She was moved 150 miles north and then on to Suez. In January 2025, the maritime security firm Ambrey announced that the cargo had been successfully offloaded and the ship was declared safe. The Red Sea did not become the Exxon Valdez.

The Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree posted video claiming the Yemeni Navy had sunk the Sounion in response to Delta Tankers' use of Israeli ports. The movement framed the strike as an act of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Three facts cut against that framing. The Sounion was carrying crude from Iraq to a Greek refinery - not to Israel. Her crew were Filipinos and Russians. And the ecosystem most at risk from her destruction was Yemen's own. The Red Sea crisis that began in late 2023 has disrupted global shipping, forced vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, and pushed up freight rates worldwide. It has also drawn navies from the EU, United States, United Kingdom, and others into a low-grade naval war that has killed sailors, damaged ships, and - in the Sounion's case - nearly produced an environmental disaster that would have punished Yemeni fishing communities for a cause nobody explained to them.