The crowd on the shores of the Red Sea is getting more complicated Who said merchant shipping on the southern approaches to the Red Sea is of recently, safe again?
Ansar Allah, the rebel movement of the Yemeni Houthis, the initiator of armed attacks on a certain shipping since November 2023, carried out the last attack on a civilian ship (Minervagracht) on September 29 last year near the Gulf of Aden. Then, 43 days later, Ansar Allah declared an end to hostilities. (https://maritime-executive.com/article/houthis-announce-end-of-red-sea-shipping-attacks).
However, at the beginning of 2026, between Suez and the far northwest Indian Ocean, 60 percent fewer ships moved than in the same period in 2023 (https://splash247.com/suez-traffic-still-60-down-100-days-after-last-houthi-attack/.
What is still holding back the mega-merchant carriers to massively return shipping to the shortest sea transport route between the markets of the East and West?
Behind this conspicuous reluctance, it seems, are numerous geopolitical concerns (https://channel16.dryadglobal.com/maritime-security-outlook-gulf-of-aden-escalations-gps-interference-in-the-gulf-and-piracy-risk).
One of them, certainly, is the further development of the mosaic of geopolitical challenges along the two coasts of the Red Sea, and beyond, to the Horn of Africa. Geographically, on the west coast, from the port of Port Sudan (Sudan), and Massawa (Eritrea) to Berbera (Somaliland), to Mogadishu (Somalia) and Djibouti.
At the same time, on the eastern shores of the Red Sea, from the port of Eilat (Israel), Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) and Hodeidah (Yemen), in the south, perhaps even to Port Louis (Mauritius)…
In that arena, two seemingly unrelated sets of events could in the long run contribute to new assessments of the “calm sea” in that region.
Namely, the sudden incursions of southern separatists in Yemen towards the strategic port of Mukalla, and on that matter, sharp confrontation between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at the end of ,could be entering a new dangerous phase… https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/05/middleeast/uae-saudi-power-struggle-yemen-intl
On the opposite shore of the Gulf of Aden, the visit of Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on January 6 to Hargeisa (on the photo)—the capital of Somaliland, and at the invitation of the President of Somaliland, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, is a new confirmation of the readiness of certain global actors to continue measuring the geopolitical status quo by their own national interests. By the way, on December 22, Israel became the first UN member state to recognize Somaliland (it separated from Somalia in 1991). Saar announced in Hargeisa that Israel and Somaliland have agreed on the appointment of ambassadors and the opening of embassies. “We will do it quickly,” Saar announced, adding that the two countries want to build a lasting and warm friendship not only between the two governments, but also between the people of Somaliland and the people of Israel (https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2026/01/first-israels-foreign-minister-visits-somaliland-what-know).
How many friends there are in the neighbourhood, is a puzzle.
