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Commercial shipping drops sharply in Red Sea amid Houthi threat

Marine traffic via the Bab-el-Mandeb strait declined significantly on the morning of January 12, after major shipping companies urged owners and operators of commercial vessels to avoid the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden area for 72 hours amid the risk of retaliatory attacks by Houthi rebels

DUBAI, January 16. /TASS/. The number of commercial ships navigating through the Red Sea fell by more than half compared to last month amid US and UK strikes against Houthi facilities in Yemen.

According to Marine Traffic website data, 114 commercial vessels, including oil tankers, passed via the Bab-el-Mandeb strait during the three-day period starting on Friday when the US and the UK hit Yemen. A total of 130 vessels crossed the Bab-el-Mandeb strait during the same period last week, and more than 270 ships passed through in mid-December 2023.

Marine traffic via the Bab-el-Mandeb strait declined significantly on the morning of January 12, after major shipping companies urged owners and operators of commercial vessels to avoid the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden area for 72 hours amid the risk of retaliatory attacks by Houthi rebels. The Marine Traffic website indicated that on Friday, twenty commercial ships had crossed the Bab-el-Mandeb strait as of 4:00 p.m. Moscow time [1:00 p.m. GMT], which is half the average recorded during the previous four days.

Bloomberg reported that the number of LNG carriers crossing the strait fell by 96% compared to previous months. Traffic among container carriers and uncategorized vessels plummeted by about 80%. The decline was 55% for oil tankers and 25% for bulk carriers. According to news agency calculations, at least 20 commercial ships either changed their course or stopped before entering the southern area of the Red Sea after the strikes against Yemen.

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