Ship refloated after running aground in Egypt's Suez Canal -sources

An aerial view of the Gulf of Suez and the Suez Canal are pictured through the window of an airplane on a flight between Cairo and Doha, Egypt, November 27, 2021. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

CAIRO (Reuters) -Tug boats refloated a ship that briefly ran aground in Egypt's Suez Canal late on Wednesday, a source from the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) and state TV reported.

The vessel had been blocking the southern section of the canal, two navigational sources said, but the SCA source said shortly afterwards that traffic had returned to normal.

There was no immediate statement about the incident from the SCA.

According to ship monitoring service TankerTrackers, the Aframax tanker Affinity V seemed to have lost control in the Suez Canal while heading southbound.

"She temporarily clogged up traffic and is now facing south again, but moving slowly by tugboat assistance," TankerTrackers said on Twitter.

(Reporting by Yousri Mohamed and Yasmin Hussein; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Mark Porter and Christian Schmollinger)