Britain's Royal Navy shot down a missile fired at a merchant vessel in the Gulf of Aden by Iranian-backed Houtis, the defence ministry said on Thursday.

The HMS Diamond warship used a Sea Viper missile system to shoot down the missile on Wednesday, the ministry said.

"The UK continues to be at the forefront of the international response to the Iranian-backed Houtis' dangerous attacks on commercial vessels, which have claimed the lives of international mariners," Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said.

"I want to thank the brave crew of HMS Diamond for her vital role in saving innocent lives and protecting international shipping from illegal Houthi attacks."

US and British forces on January 12 fired their first joint strikes aimed at reducing the Houtis' ability to target vessels transiting the key Red Sea trade route. The Houtis say the attacks are in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Israel is at war with Hamas.

The Houtis began targeting Red Sea shipping in November.

At least 34 people, including two babies were killed when a contraband fuel depot exploded into flames in southern Benin near the border with Nigeria on Saturday.

According to Beninese Interior Minister Alassane Seidou, “a serious fire occurred in the town of Seme Podji. Another 20 people were seriously wounded in the incident.”

"I can't really give you the cause of the fire, but there is a large gasoline warehouse here and cars, tricycles and motorcycles come from morning to evening,” he added.

Nigeria is a main oil and gas producer where fuel smuggling is very common along its borders, particularly when the government maintains a subsidy to keep fuel prices low.

The majority of the victims were burnt and they could not be not be identified.

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here, content here', making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).