Ships avoid crossing Suez Canal amid Houthis’ attacks on Red Sea
Ships avoid crossing Suez Canal as Yemen’s Iranian movement, Houthis, has been responsible for several attacks on vessels crossing the Red Sea, as a response to the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza.
The route that the Houthis are targeting allows East-West trade to cross the Suez Canal as it’s faster as ships don’t have to circumnavigate.
In recent weeks, the Houthis have launched attacks on Israeli ships and, at the same time, fired drones and missiles at Israel.
Moreover, they hit the Red Sea resort city of Eilat on Saturday in support of the Palestinian militants.
Osama Rabie, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), said in a statement on Sunday that 55 ships avoided crossing the Suez Canal route, and went through the Cape of Good Hope instead since November 19, which is considered a small percentage compared to 2,128 vessels that used the Suez Canal route during the same period.
Rabie further stated that the SCA is keeping an eye on the ongoing situation in the Red Sea, and its possible consequences on the ships’ movement in the Canal. He also highlighted that the navigation in the waterway is going normal.
The statements came amid the announcement of some shipping companies that they would turn away from the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait, which leads to the Suez Canal, to the Cape of Good Hope route around Africa.
Rabie also said that 77 ships crossed the Suez Canal route on Sunday, including Maersk Saigon, CMA CGM Christophe Colomb, and MSC Fabienne, which are ships from the companies that announced their temporary diversion to the Cape of Good Hope route.
Furthermore, in response to the ongoing tension in the Red Sea, shipping companies such as German Hapag-Lloyd, Danish Maersk, French CMA CGM, and Italian-Swiss MSC, announced they were halting passage through the Bab Al-Mandeb strait.
While CMA CGM ordered all of its vessels to leave the area on Saturday and stay there until further notice, MSC, one of the largest freight shipping lines in the world, said that one of its container vessels had been targeted in the Red Sea on Friday and that it was stopping traffic through the strait until it was safe.
Another major company MSC said on Friday that one of its container vessels had been targeted in the Red Sea which made it stop traffic through the strait until the circumstances become safer. Also, CMA CGM commanded all its containers to leave the area until further notice on Sunday.
Israel’s National Security Council issued a “urgent instruction” on December 12th, ordering Israeli ports to remove information about ship arrivals and departures from their online platforms in response to Houthi attacks on Israeli shipping and vessels traveling towards Israel through the Bab Al-Mandeb strait, as reported by the Globes newspaper.
