Conflict in the Red Sea#
This section examines how the conflict fatalities in the countries of the red sea region have progressed since the crisis started in October 7th. The analysis is conducted using dat from ACLED.
Insights#
To match the conflict analysis with the maritime trade trends as previously seen on this web-book, we aggregated the ACLED data to show weekly trends near the ports of interest.
Visualizing conflict fatalities between October 7th 2023 and October 20th 2024#
Reported attacks in the Red Sea region, particularly in Yemen, have markedly risen since the onset of the conflict in the Middle East.
The death toll since April has risen from 11 fatalities in the Red Sea region to 14. The conflict events have risen from 82 to 199. The previous peak seen in March 2024 has been replaced by a new peak in June 2024 which registered 34 conflict events. In the entire region, the number of Houthi-related deaths are 1753 and number of conflict events are 1947 since October 2023.
Updates from April 2024
Since the start of the Red Sea Crisis on November 17, 2023, until April 11, 2024, 82 conflict events have occurred in the Red Sea region, resulting in 11 fatalities. The conflict events have increased, with March 2024 registering 27 conflict events, the highest so far. These events include anti-ship ballistic missiles launched by Houthi forces and interception and strike efforts by the US, UK, German, French, and Italian Navies. Overall, conflict events involving Houthi forces have resulted in 956 conflict events and 959 conflict-related fatalities across the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region since the start of the conflict in Gaza.
There were 34 conflict incidents involving tanker ships and 5 involving cargo ships in the South Red Sea Region starting form October 7th 2023 to October 20th 2024. 13 of the incidents involving tankers were Shelling/artillery/missile attacks while 6 were Air/drone strikes. The cargo-related incidents also resulted in 2 reported fatalities.
The USA was involved in 90 conflict incidents in the Red Sea region. Of these, 86 were interceptions. The breakdown of attacks that are interceptions is shown below.
| actor1 | Numbe rof incidents involving interceptions | |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Military Forces of the United States (2021-) | 86 |
| 1 | Military Forces of France (2017-) | 5 |
| 2 | Military Forces of Italy (2022-) | 4 |
| 3 | Military Forces of the United Kingdom (2010-) | 4 |
| 4 | Military Forces of Germany (2021-) | 3 |
| 5 | Private Security Forces (International) | 2 |
| 6 | Military Forces of Denmark (2019-) | 1 |
| 7 | Military Forces of Yemen (2017-) Houthi | 1 |
56 specific ships were identified in the reported conflicts with their IMO numbers. Some ships were involved in more than one incident. The breakdown of ships is as shown below. The countries to which the ships belong to is difficult to ascertain as differnet databases show different results.
| IMO | nrEvents | |
|---|---|---|
| 16 | (IMO: 9312145) | 3 |
| 2 | (IMO: 9213820) | 3 |
| 27 | (IMO: 9419101) | 3 |
| 39 | (IMO: 9601235) | 3 |
| 20 | (IMO: 9327097) | 3 |
| 13 | (IMO: 9297888) | 2 |
| 43 | (IMO: 9694622) | 2 |
| 18 | (IMO: 9320506) | 2 |
| 15 | (IMO: 9302566) | 2 |
| 14 | (IMO: 9298387) | 2 |
| 55 | (IMO: 9942627) | 2 |
| 34 | (IMO: 9512355) | 2 |
| 9 | (IMO: 9263320) | 2 |
| 8 | (IMO: 9253129) | 2 |
| 51 | (IMO: 9799616) | 2 |
| 41 | (IMO: 9632208) | 1 |
| 35 | (IMO: 9514004) | 1 |
| 36 | (IMO: 9523469) | 1 |
| 37 | (IMO: 9565716) | 1 |
| 38 | (IMO: 9595589) | 1 |
| 54 | (IMO: 9923085) | 1 |
| 53 | (IMO: 9893228) | 1 |
| 40 | (IMO: 9616606) | 1 |
| 48 | (IMO: 9760158) | 1 |
| 42 | (IMO: 9693068) | 1 |
| 47 | (IMO: 9748734) | 1 |
| 44 | (IMO: 9699880) | 1 |
| 45 | (IMO: 9699892) | 1 |
| 50 | (IMO: 9784300) | 1 |
| 46 | (IMO: 9737591) | 1 |
| 33 | (IMO: 9486013) | 1 |
| 49 | (IMO: 9779800) | 1 |
| 52 | (IMO: 9839480) | 1 |
| 0 | (IMO: 9174268) | 1 |
| 32 | (IMO: 9482861) | 1 |
| 31 | (IMO: 9469924) | 1 |
| 3 | (IMO: 9223174) | 1 |
| 4 | (IMO: 9237307) | 1 |
| 5 | (IMO: 9239927) | 1 |
| 6 | (IMO: 9243320) | 1 |
| 7 | (IMO: 9248447) | 1 |
| 10 | (IMO: 9276597) | 1 |
| 11 | (IMO: 9284740) | 1 |
| 12 | (IMO: 9288526) | 1 |
| 17 | (IMO: 9312640) | 1 |
| 19 | (IMO: 9324978) | 1 |
| 21 | (IMO: 9340752) | 1 |
| 22 | (IMO: 9395379) | 1 |
| 23 | (IMO: 9398280) | 1 |
| 24 | (IMO: 9400112) | 1 |
| 25 | (IMO: 9402469) | 1 |
| 26 | (IMO: 9402471) | 1 |
| 1 | (IMO: 9184938) | 1 |
| 29 | (IMO: 9437684) | 1 |
| 30 | (IMO: 9461489) | 1 |
| 28 | (IMO: 9426051) | 1 |