- Exactly six months ago, on March 2, the Rubymar, a cargo ship carrying fertilizer, heavy fuel oil and marine diesel, became the first ship sunk in a series of attacks by the Houthis, the Iran-backed Yemeni civil war opposition group.
- The ship continues to raise fears of damage to the marine environment when its cargo holds inevitably disintegrate, including oil slicks, algal blooms and “dead zones.”
- In the latest significant strike, on Aug. 23, Houthis hit the Sounion oil tanker carrying almost 1 million barrels of crude oil, which now poses a navigational and environmental threat.
- Ongoing ship strikes by the Houthis in response to Israeli actions in Gaza threaten Red Sea marine ecosystems, which are already subject to the operational oil spills of one of the busiest shipping lanes on the planet, and the livelihoods of the coastal communities dependent on them.
Exactly six months ago, the Rubymar bulk carrier became the first ship sunk in a series of attacks by the Houthis protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza since October 2023. On March 2, the Yemeni civil war opposition group sent the merchant ship and her cargo of oil and fertilizer to the bottom of the Bab el Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea. There it still lurks, continuing to stoke fears of an environmental crisis when it eventually disintegrates.
Meanwhile, the Iran-backed Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, have struck dozens more vessels, sinking at least one more. The Red Sea is becoming increasingly fraught with abandoned ships and damaged vessels continuing their journey, often trailing oil. Larger oil slicks visible through satellite imagery more than doubled in the region between 2023 and 2024, threatening marine ecosystems and the livelihoods of local people who depend upon them.
The most recent significant Houthi-claimed strike was against the Greek-flagged Sounion oil tanker. Unidentified projectiles hit it on Aug. 21, forcing its Russian and Filipino crew to evacuate. Two days later, the Houthis detonated explosive charges on board the abandoned tanker, leaving almost 1 million barrels of crude oil adrift in a burning ship.
“The increasing number of incidents in the Red Sea is a direct result of the escalating tension gripping our region,” Julian Jreissati, program director for Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa, told Mongabay. “As the situation in the Middle East grows increasingly volatile, the humanitarian and environmental crises unfolding in the region will only deepen.”
Oil slicks and algal blooms
The Houthis, who did not respond to Mongabay’s request for comment, claim to have targeted 177 Israel-, U.S.- and U.K.-linked ships in the Arabian and Red seas since November 2023, in solidarity with Palestinians and in retaliation for U.S. and U.K. support for Israel and airstrikes against Houthi-occupied Yemen. They struck the Rubymar thinking it was British-owned, but it has subsequently been established as Lebanese-owned, according to shipping journal Lloyd’s List.
One of the Rubymar’s five cargo holds was compromised during the Feb. 18 attack, and likely released its contents into the water during the following weeks. The four other holds, carrying most of a cargo estimated at around 22,000 metric tons of fertilizer, 200 metric tons of heavy fuel oil and 80 metric tons of marine diesel, are thought to remain intact underwater.
Following the missile strike, the damaged Rubymar, originally en route from Saudi Arabia to Bulgaria, began to take on water and dropped anchor. Its crew of Syrian, Egyptian, Filipino and Indian nationals evacuated and were later rescued, according to Lloyd’s List. The abandoned ship drifted northward for two weeks, continuing to take on water while leaking a 29 kilometer (18 mile) long oil slick.
“In addition to the fuel oil, the leaking fertilizer poses a significant threat to the marine environment,” Tawfeeq Al Sharjabi, minister of water and environment in the internationally recognized government of Yemen, told Mongabay. Fertilizer can cause algal blooms that result in low-oxygen dead zones that kill off marine life. However, he said, “ongoing water assessments have not yet detected any substantial negative impacts on the marine ecosystem.”
The situation is more of a crisis in waiting than an immediate emergency: “It is likely that the cargo in the [Rubymar’s] remaining four holds will remain for years until watertight integrity is lost, either through structural failure or degradation of the hull,” Diego Zorrilla, the U.N.’s deputy humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, told Mongabay.
Zorrilla is part of a 15-strong U.N. team that worked with a crisis-response group from the internationally recognized government of Yemen to analyze the Rubymar situation in March. The team recommended regular subsea monitoring using a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROUV) to check for pollutant release. Its report also advised surface monitoring via water sampling, satellite images and coast guard patrols, and that the government seek international assistance.
“Immediate preparedness actions should include planning for shoreline cleanup operations if/when the oil impacts the shore,” Zorrilla said.
The main risks, he added, are fertilizer-catalyzed algal blooms and a sudden release of oil that could reach the nearby Hanish Islands and coastal marine protected zones. These areas are especially sensitive to pollutants, and support the second-longest coral reef on the planet, home to the most heat-resistant corals on Earth.
In the event of an algal boom, fishing and shellfish collection in the area would have to cease due to possible toxicity. For the 300,000 people dependent on Yemen’s fishing industry in nearby Hodeidah governorate this could spell disaster. More than 60% of fishers in this area have already lost their jobs due to the attacks, a March 2024 assessment carried out by ACAPS, an independent analytical consultancy, reported. And the Yemeni population can ill afford having fewer fish on the market during an ongoing famine precipitated by the civil war, according to the FAO.
In June, the U.N.’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) launched an appeal for equipment to meet Zorrilla’s team’s recommendations and “to boost the capacity within Yemen to respond to any kind of leak or pollution that might occur from this ship or indeed from other ships,” Patricia Charlebois, deputy director of the IMO’s Marine Environment Division, said in a statement emailed to Mongabay.
So far, an ROUV has been pledged by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, which works closely with the Yemeni coast guard, according to Zorrilla.
A fleet of stricken, leaky ships
The sunken cargo of the Rubymar and the blazing Sounion are just two ingredients in a recipe for environmental degradation likely to impact coastal communities in Yemen, Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Sudan who depend on the ocean.
The Houthis sunk the Tutor coal tanker in June, killing one crew member.
They also struck the Verbena in June, but Mongabay could not ascertain whether the vessel sank or was salvaged after a U.K. Maritime Trade Operations security alert reported that it was no longer under command, drifting unlit, on fire and sinking.
The oil tanker Chios Lion was hit on July 15. After sustaining damage, it reversed course back up to the Suez Canal, trailing an oil slick more than 200 km (124 mi) long that eventually spread over 100 km2 (39 mi2).
If the Houthis’ latest significant attack has breached the Sounion oil tanker’s hull, the resulting spill could be the biggest oil disaster so far this century and the fifth biggest ever recorded by the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation. The Sounion has been ablaze in at least five places since Aug. 23. It threatens a “catastrophic environmental crisis,” but there was no evidence yet of a major spill, EU Naval Forces said in an Aug. 29 update.
“As of today, September 2, 2024, the salvage operation has commenced. Two tugs are working to secure the vessel and assess the situation where the process of determining the most appropriate salvage method is currently underway,” said Al Sharjabi, the Yemeni environment minister.
Even without rocket attacks, ecosystem-stressing operational spills associated with high oil-transport volumes are common as daily Red Sea oil traffic hit 9.2 million barrels in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The northern Red Sea’s Gulf of Suez saw 150 spills, covering 851 km2 (329 mi2) over the five years to 2021, according to satellite imagery research.
The “slick filter” on the SkyTruth satellite imaging platform indicates little difference between this year and last in the number of smaller slicks detected using Sentinel-1 imaging data. However, the number of slicks covering more than 40 km2 (15mi2) has more than doubled since the attacks began.
“The recent attack on the Sounion oil tanker … underscores the ongoing threat to the region’s maritime safety and the environment,” said Al Sharjabi, the Yemeni environment minister.
“Greenpeace MENA strongly urges policymakers to address the region’s instability,” said Greenpeace’s Jreissati, “including advocating for a comprehensive ceasefire in Gaza to prevent further regional escalation and its harmful impacts on both people and the environment.”
Banner image: MV Rubymar sinks in the Red Sea on Mar. 2, 2024. Image courtesy of U.S. Central Command via Wikimedia Commons.
How the United Nations, kids and corporations saved the Red Sea from an oil disaster
Citations:
Liubartseva, S., Coppini, G., Verdiani, G., Mungari, T., Ronco, F., Pinto, M., … Lecci, R. (2023). Modeling chronic oil pollution from ships. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 195, 115450. doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2023.115450
El-Magd, I. A., Zakzouk, M., Ali, E. M., Abdulaziz, A. M., Rehman, A., & Saba, T. (2023). Mapping oil pollution in the Gulf of Suez in 2017-2021 using Synthetic Aperture Radar. The Egyptian Journal of Remote Sensing and Space Sciences, 26(3), 826-838. doi:10.1016/j.ejrs.2023.08.005
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