The Houthis love to attack such merchant ships! Some countries and industries have been affected

Mondo Military Updated on 2024-02-01

Since November this year, Yemen's Houthi rebels have carried out frequent attacks on merchant ships passing through the Red Sea, seriously affecting the passage of ships passing through the Suez Canal, a maritime fortress. Although US-led forces have massed in the Red Sea to stop Houthi attacks, the attacks have continued.

The Suez Canal to the Red Sea Passage is one of the busiest routes in the world, handling around 12% of the world's routes. Data shows that the Suez Canal carries more than 20% of the world's shipping containers**, as well as 20% of the world's marine vehicles** and 12% of oil**, among others**.

Despite the risk of Houthi attacks, thousands of merchant ships still pass through the Red Sea every day, some of them without fear of being attacked. Why? This is because in addition to attacking merchant ships linked to Israel, the Houthis will also choose the type of merchant ships they attack.

According to statistics, the Houthis' favorite merchant ships to attack are car carriers. The first merchant ship to be attacked by the Houthis, the Galaxy Leader, was a car carrier that was hijacked on November 19 while returning to Asia to load thousands of vehicles for Europe. The 25 crew members were kidnapped and have not yet been released, and their fate is unknown, and the ship has been detained. A number of car carriers have been attacked so far, and it seems that the Houthis love cars, after all, cars are ready to use. As a result, 42 dedicated motor vessels passed through the Red Sea last month, more than halved from December 2022, and only one took the Red Sea route this year.

At the same time, tankers have been virtually unaffected, with no tankers attacked or threatened to date, and a large number of tankers still pass through the Red Sea shipping lanes every day, as the Houthis seem to have little interest in them. There is speculation that the Houthis may not be able to deal with it**.

Car carriers traveling from Asia to Europe take longer times to circumnavigate Africa and are currently particularly disruptive to the global automotive industry. In the wake of the Red Sea crisis, the daily rent of transoceanic car carriers has risen from $1 two years ago$60,000 soared to $10$50,000. Moreover, the amount of merchant marine insurance has also risen, which undoubtedly greatly increases the cost of automobile transportation.

Obviously, some of Asia's automobile production and export countries are greatly affected by the Red Sea crisis, especially China and Japan have the greatest impact, China and Japan are the world's top two automobile exporters, and China has just replaced Japan this year to become the world's largest automobile exporter, a few days ago, China's car manufacturers have been rapidly increasing exports to Europe, especially electric vehicles.

The Houthis are said to have claimed that they will not attack merchant ships that have nothing to do with Israel, but the shells have no eyes, and some merchant ships have chosen to circumnavigate the Cape of Good Hope in Africa. In mid-December, MSC, the world's largest container shipping company, said it would avoid the Red Sea route. Maersk, the second-largest shipping company, suspended the Red Sea route and returned to the region at the end of December, and again this week after the attack on its ship, the Maersk Hangzhou. As of Thursday, 389 container ships — a fifth of global container capacity — had been or were in the process of being diverted to avoid the Suez Canal, according to data provided by logistics company Fixiebo.

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