IMO Trying to Improve Safety of Navigation off Yemen
The IMO is advancing its Red Sea Project to improve security and the coordination of maritime situational awareness in the Horn of Africa and the waters off Yemen.
Under the project, the IMO supported a four-day workshop held from June 22 to 25, 2026, alongside the European Union-funded Crisis Response Project for the Red Sea and the Western Indian Ocean. The workshop brought together representatives of all Yemeni agencies involved in policing and management of the waters off Yemen in the offices of the Ministry of Transport in Aden.
The workshop objective was to develop a roadmap for the establishment of two entities, a National Maritime Information Sharing Centre based in the headquarters of the Yemeni Coastguard, which exists in embryonic form already, and which then is to feed into the Regional Maritime Information Sharing Centre based 100 yards away on the Aden dockside in the Yemen Maritime Affairs Authority. The IMO was keen that these two bodies adopt the regionally-agreed 2023 Djibouti Code of Conduct/Jeddah Amendment Information Sharing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) as the foundation for Yemen’s national procedures. Indicative of the challenges ahead, these SOPs are not yet translated into Arabic, which will become an early task on the project roadmap.
The IMO and EU project is a regionally-coordinated project, so that littoral states in the area can share both information but also procedures to be adopted both for routine reporting and the handling of emergencies.
A separate project proceeding at the same time, sponsored by Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and EU donors, seeks to strengthen the capabilities of the Yemeni Coastguard. The UK has sponsored the introduction into service of two patrol craft, the Aden (IMO 4698611) and the Mayun, now based on Perim Island. This project has also seen improved coordination between what was the Coastguard and maritime patrols operated by the National Resistance Forces operating in the southern Red Sea.
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Practical problems, however, are manifold. There has been a power struggle between the Minister of Interior Ibrahim Haidan, who sought to displace Major General Khaled Ali Mohammed Al Qumali as head of the Coastguard, a move quashed by the Saudis. Such internal conflicts tend to arise when individual ministries or departments win foreign aid support, and others seek to benefit as well.
Somali-based piracy is increasing in Yemeni waters, with the Secretary General of the IMO calling for the immediate release of 44 sailors being held hostage since March off Puntland on three tankers, the Palau-flagged MT Honour 25 (IMO 1099735), the Togo-registered?Eureka (IMO 1022823), and the St Kitts & Nevis-flagged Sward (IMO 917424402). More ominously, Houthi-Saudi relations have deteriorated, as talks to come to a general peace, which would involve Saudi subsidies and a lifting of the blockade have stalled; an outbreak of fighting within Yemen would once again threaten a rise in attacks on shipping passing through Yemeni waters.