Recent attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Red Sea shipping have posed a new threat, causing delays in shipments from Asia to Europe.
The United States said last week it believed the recent sinking of a Belize-flagged Lebanese-operated fertilizer ship had severed vital undersea cables that provide internet connections between the East and West.
A U.S. defense official said the attack on the M/V Rubymar on February 18 “forced the crew to abandon ship.”
“Preliminary assessments indicate that the anchor dragging along the seafloor may have severed undersea cables that provide internet and telecommunications services around the world,” the official added.
First it was environmental threats, now it’s internet outages
After that, the “Ruby” sank, causing a certain degree of environmental disaster. According to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), a 29-kilometer (18-mile) long oil slick appeared shortly after the attack.
There are now fears further damage could be caused if its fertilizer cargo leaks.
While the Houthis were not directly responsible for the damage to undersea cables, their attacks increase the threat to internet connectivity in the region because they make other similar incidents more likely.
Sixteen of the fiber-optic cables have been laid in the Red Sea, running along the ocean floor, allowing Internet data to travel at nearly the speed of light.
Media reports said the cable damage was so severe that a quarter of internet traffic between Asia and Europe was disrupted.
“Anchor incidents are the second most common cause of undersea cable failures,” Tim Stronge, vice president of research at TeleGeography, a Washington-based telecommunications research firm, wrote in a recent blog post. “On average, somewhere around the world every week Two cables are faulty.”
Repeated attacks heighten risks to undersea internet cables
Strong added that Houthi attacks on shipping do pose “real challenges” because of the underwater hazards posed by sunken ships to cables and cable-laying vessels.
The Houthi attacks have led to a surge in insurance not only for container shipping but also for ships helping to lay out undersea internet infrastructure, which Stronger said could make installing new cables in the Red Sea “prohibitive.”
“The real problem in war-risk areas is that you can’t repair cables like you can elsewhere.” Peter Sand is principal analyst at Copenhagen-based maritime research firm Xeneta Tell DW “You can’t send a cable repair ship to the Red Sea now,” [due to the risk of attack.]
this wall street journal Industry experts were quoted this week as saying that the cost of insuring cable ships off Yemen has risen to $150,000 a day.
Alternative cable routes must be explored
Meanwhile, telecoms industry experts are calling on governments to do more to force the industry to find alternative routes for internet cables to reduce disruption caused by disruptions to undersea lines.
For example, a land route through Saudi Arabia could help completely avoid the Red Sea and other high-risk waters in the Middle East. But they warn that terrestrial cables tend to cost much more.
The Houthis, who control much of war-torn Yemen, say they are targeting ships in the Red Sea linked to Israel, the United States and Britain in retaliation for Israel’s war in Gaza against the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The Iran-backed group has attacked dozens of ships since late last year, and the Rubymar was the first ship to sink as a result of the attack.
In the first deadly attack by the Houthis, the Barbados-flagged, Greek-operated ship True Confidence was hit by a missile last Wednesday, killing two Filipino crew members and a Vietnamese crew member.
The Houthis deny targeting undersea telecommunications cables, but they carry out near-daily attacks that have led many global shipping companies to avoid the Red Sea and nearby Suez Canal heading to the Mediterranean.
Instead, many ships are taking the longer, more dangerous route around southern Africa to Europe, which takes an extra seven to 10 days.
Shipping insurance premiums have soared due to heightened risks, while route rerouting has pushed up fuel, staff and other costs as more ships are needed to sail longer routes.
Freight rates also rose sharply late last year but have been declining since late January.
Death toll could spur more ships to use African routes
Despite the risks, some shipping companies continue to use the Red Sea.butThe loss of life on the True Confidence and the severing of undersea cables may lead more companies to choose safer routes around Africa.
“Every company has its own risk assessment – which explains why some still transit [The Red Sea].But now the casualties may have crossed the red line [on True Confidence],” Sander said.
The latest attacks could even trigger tougher measures from Western forces, which have sent naval missions to nearby waterways to protect vital shipping trade from Asia to Europe.
The United States and Britain sent warships to the region when the attacks first began in November; EU navies began heading to the Middle East last month with support from several EU countries, including Germany.
“I don’t see a large-scale military response,” Sander told DW. “It’s a tug-of-war, so I hope that naval forces in the region will continue to conduct thorough investigations of targets that need to be dealt with to ensure the safe passage of merchant ships. .”
Editor: Ashutosh Pandey