MANAMA: Greenpeace vessel the Rainbow Warrior II made an unscheduled stop in Bahrain as part of a tour of the Gulf, it has emerged.

The ship, which had a crew of 19, arrived on February 5 before leaving two days later to Qatar, where it is still docked.

It arrived from Abu Dhabi and has also visited Kuwait and Dubai as part of a campaign to encourage further investment in renewable energy in the region.

Environmental activists have also travelled to the region to release the results of laboratory tests, which the organisation commissioned late last year, that allegedly revealed traces of Genetically Modified Organisms in some US-imported corn products sold in the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar.

The French government was famously charged with blowing up the ship's predecessor the Rainbow Warrior in 1985 after the ship docked in New Zealand, in an attempt to stop environmental activists from interfering with a nuclear test in the island of Moruroa in the Pacific Ocean.

"It was not actually a scheduled stop, but the crew had some spare time so they decided to stop in Bahrain," said Greenpeace's Lebanon-based communications officer Basma Badran. "We took the opportunity of Bahraini hospitality to replenish the ship and give our crew some time on land." She added the organisation had no future plans to visit Bahrain as yet.