A Yemeni military helicopter with 12 troops on board crashed in the Red Sea on Saturday killing eight soldiers and officers, a Yemeni defense official said. The official, quoted by the state-run SABA news agency, said the crash was due to a technical fault. The remaining four soldiers survived the crash which occurred off the Red Sea island of Hanish, 30 miles off the Yemeni mainland.

The Defense Ministry is investigating what caused the fault, SABA added.

Defense Ministry sources told Reuters the helicopter had been on a routine patrol mission over Hanish, which was handed back to Yemen by Eritrea in 1998 after a sovereignty dispute. A token Yemeni force is located in the northwest of the island.


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A Yemeni military helicopter with 12 troops on board crashed in the Red Sea on Saturday killing eight soldiers and officers. The crash occurred off the Red Sea island of Hanish, 30 miles off the Yemeni mainland.