Shipping Giant Maersk Alters Routes to Avoid Red Sea “In the Near Future”

The Danish company Maersk stated in a statement on Friday that all of their ships that were scheduled to cross the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden will be redirected south to navigate around the Cape of Good Hope in the near future.

On January 2nd, Maersk announced that it would temporarily halt all ships heading to the Red Sea, and subsequently the shortcut route via the Suez Canal between Europe and Asia, following an attack on one of its vessels carried out by the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Since then, they have begun redirecting ship routes to circumnavigate Africa.

The company said on Friday that “the situation is constantly evolving and still very fragile, and all available information confirms that the security risks are still very high.”

“And so we have decided to redirect all Maersk vessels that were supposed to pass through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden towards the south around the Cape of Good Hope in the near future.”

The Houthi rebels in Yemen have been attacking high-value cargo ships in the Red Sea since November in support of the Hamas movement in Gaza.

This has led many shipping lines to change their routes to go around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa.

The prices of sea shipping increased after a missile attack and an attempted hijacking on a container ship owned by Maersk at the beginning of the week, which has led shipping companies to suspend plans to resume crossing the Red Sea, a major artery that leads to the Suez Canal, through which about 12 percent of global trade passes.

The Egyptian Suez Canal connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea and serves as the quickest route for shipping fuel, food, and consumer goods from Asia and the Middle East to Europe. Shipping companies use this route to transport up to a third of the total global container shipments, which carry goods such as toys, tennis shoes, furniture, and frozen food.