Crisis in the Bab el-Mandeb threatens world trade
IT HAD been slow in building but the security situation at the narrow entrance to the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb, has over the past few days become a full-scale international crisis. It is one that has seen ships attacked or hijacked, seafarers abducted and, now, normal transit though the vital waterway disrupted.
Just over a month ago the British-owned, Japanese-operated, Bahamas-flagged vehicle carrier Galaxy Leader was boarded by armed men from a helicopter and seized at gunpoint. She was forced to anchor off a Yemeni port that is controlled by Houthi rebels. It is not clear where the crew are being held although it would seem likely that they have been taken ashore. That is because a video is circulating on YouTube showing Yemenis treating the vessel as a tourist attraction, with visitors all around the ship and no mention of her crew.
The slickly produced video taunts the international community and threatens to attack or seize any vessel that the Houthi leadership considers to have Israeli connections. It boasts that the ship was seized despite the presence of a US aircraft carrier and that the Yemeni rebels can disrupt world trade. The incident took place at about the same time as the Houthis fired missiles and launched drones towards Israel.
The reporting of the Galaxy Leader incident and the apparent initial response seemed rather low-key, possibly because so much else was going on at the time in Israel and Gaza.
However, the attacks on ships gradually increased. Kitack Lim, the secretary-general of the International Maritime Organization, issued a statement last week (Dec 12) saying: “The recent reports of threats made to commercial shipping in the Red Sea are extremely alarming and unacceptable. Commercial shipping should never be a collateral victim of geopolitical conflicts. Any attack on commercial shipping is contrary to international maritime law, including laws which protect the freedom of navigation. Any action which might adversely affect shipping engaged in international trade must be avoided.”
Lim invoked the 2009 Djibouti Code of Conduct, by which regional governments agreed to act against piracy. However, these attacks are not piracy but politically motivated violence. That puts them into a completely different and more dangerous category.
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In recent days, the situation has deteriorated rapidly. No more ships have been seized by the Houthis although, in their first successful large-ship hijacking in years, apparent Somali-based pirates took Maltese-flagged bulk carrier Ruen last week close to the island of Socotra near the approaches to the Red Sea. There has been speculation that this hijacking is linked to the Houthis’ anti-Israel campaign. British newspaper The Telegraph has reported that vessel tracking shows that the ship is heading into the Red Sea.
Whatever the truth of that is, attacks on shipping off the Yemeni coast have escalated in the past few days with US warships and a British destroyer bringing down missiles aimed at merchant ships.
If the intention is to attack Israeli-linked shipping, then the Houthis are not really achieving their aim. If, though, the intention is to disrupt world trade, then that is already happening. Major companies, including Maersk Tankers, Maersk Line, Evergreen and BP, have reportedly stopped their ships sailing into the Red Sea and are re-routing around the Cape of Good Hope. In normal times about 12 per cent of world trade goes through the Suez Canal.
That means that these attacks are at least getting close to shutting down the Suez Canal route between Europe and Asia, just as the Ever Given grounding in the canal actually did in 2021. It took a few days, and cost one life, to get Ever Given free, and a lot longer to sort out the consequent disruption.
However, that incident could pale into insignificance if the entrance to the Red Sea continues to be, in effect, a war zone. The panic buttons are being pressed. The body that represents liner shipping, the World Shipping Council, has put out statement saying that it is “deeply alarmed and concerned about the escalating security crisis unfolding in the Red Sea region”.
It adds: “The right of freedom of navigation stands as a fundamental right under international law, and must be safeguarded. The World Shipping Council urgently calls upon the global community to take decisive action to protect seafarers and freedom of navigation.”
The largest organisation representing shipowners, the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) has also made its views clear, noting that the attacks are “unacceptable acts of aggression which threaten the lives of innocent seafarers and the safety of merchant shipping”.
ICS adds: “These attacks are a flagrant breach of international law. States with influence in the region should, as a matter of urgency, work to stop the actions of the Houthis in attacking seafarers and merchant ships, and de-escalate what is now an extremely serious threat to international trade.”
That plea for action recognises that we are now in the realm of international power politics. Certainly America is taking the situation very seriously. On Monday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called on more countries to assist by providing naval forces to stop the attacks.
It is very difficult to predict how things will develop, given the dangerously volatile situation in the region, but for the shipping industry there are practical decisions to made. Before the big names in shipping start sending their vessels into the Red Sea again, they will want to be very sure that they will have safe passage. The Cape route could be busy for a little while yet.
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