The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) warned that The content (fertilizer cargo and leaking fuel) of the Belize-flagged, British-owned bulk carrier Rubymar struck by a Houthi rebels missile in the Red Sea and sank “ could devastate marine life and destroy coral reefs, sea life and jeopardize hundreds of thousands of jobs in the fishing industry as well as cut littoral states off from supplies of food and fuel.”
In an analysis published by Foreign Policy Magazine , Elisabeth Braw, a columnist at Foreign Policy and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, disclosed that “The ship’s owner had tried to get it towed to the Port of Aden—where Yemen’s internationally recognized government is based—and to Djibouti and Saudi Arabia, but citing the environmental risk posed by the ammonium phosphate sulfate, all three nations refused to receive it.”
The Rubymar was the first vessel that has been completely lost since the Houthis began their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea—and its demise, with 21,000 metric tons of ammonium phosphate sulfate fertilizer, spells ecological disaster. .
Elisabeth Braw mentioned that “For years, the Houthis allowed an oil supertanker ironically named Safer that was moored off the coast of Yemen to rust away even though she was holding more than 1 million barrels of crude oil. By the beginning of last year, the Safer was close to disintegration: an event that would have cost hundreds of thousands of Yemenis their livelihoods because it would have killed enormous quantities of fish.
Braw concluded “ Now, though, the Houthis have upped the nihilism, and unlike the guerrillas, terrorists, and pirates of the 1980s, they have the weaponry to cause an ocean-going vessel to sink", adding " The joint U.S.-U.K. military operation against the Houthis has failed deter the Iranian-backed militia’s attacks; indeed, not even air strikes by U.S. and U.K. forces have convinced the Houthis that it’s time to stop. On the contrary, they’re escalating their attacks. They do so because they’re completely unconcerned about loss of life within their ranks or harm to their own waters."
And for now, attacking merchant vessels remains a promising and economical strategy for the Houthis and their ilk. It doesn’t seem to matter that ammonium phosphate sulfate will soon be poisoning Yemeni waters and thus depriving locals of their livelihoods. Indeed, other bulk carriers and tankers may soon join the Rubymar on the bottom of the sea, poisoning the future for even more Yemenis.
For the Houthis, what matters is not the outcome: It’s the attention. That’s what makes them such a vexing problem for the U.S. Navy and other navies, ship-owners, maritime insurers, and especially for seafarers. But there is another group that should be just as worried about the rampant insecurity on the high seas: ocean conservationists.