Two more large shipping companies, Mediterranean Shipping Company, and CMA CGM, announced on Saturday that they were restricting passage through a Red Sea channel essential to world trade After Yemeni rebel attacks in the immediate vicinity.
The statement by MSC, an Italian-Swiss conglomerate, and CMA CGM, a French shipping company, follows a similar decision by two of the world’s largest shipping companies, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, on Friday.
The declarations were made in response to a warning issued by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who control much of Yemen but are not recognized internationally.
The Houthis claimed they were targeting vessels near the strategically important Bab al-Mandeb strait in order to put pressure on Israel over its disastrous war in Gaza.
Every year, thousands of ships pass across the strait, which connects Yemen, on the Arabian Peninsula’s southwestern edge, and the African continent.
Ships belonging to Israel or headed to its ports “will remain vulnerable to targeting until the aggression stops, the siege on Gaza is lifted, and humanitarian aid continues to flow” to Gaza, according to Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdul Salam on X, formerly Twitter.
He stated that Oman was supporting negotiations “with a number of international parties” about operations in the Red and Arabian Seas.
According to the US Central Command (CENTCOM), an American destroyer shot down more than a dozen drones launched from Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen in the Red Sea on Saturday.
According to the UK government, one of its destroyers also shot down a suspected attack drone in the region.
